Ain't no Rest for the Wicked
by stratusfish
Summary: And here Harry had thought being the Master of Death was just a frivolous title.
1. It's Just Forever

_Yes, yes, once more, we all have to wonder, __**why**__? Where does this come from? What uncontrollable, immoral abyss in my mind compels me to come up with this shit? I really don't know. For some reason, I can never just write in the HP fandom, its too grand, or maybe just too used up, but crossovers are so compelling to me in a way I can't comprehend. _

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><p>"I'm Ryuk." The giant, towering creature introduced himself.<p>

Harry would have been more appalled had he not already encountered giants, centaurs, and thestrals. This creature looked a bit like all of the above.

"Hullo." He held out his hand, for lack of anything else to do. "How do you do?"

Ryuk laughed. It was a choking, morbid sound. His large yellow eyes beadily looked down at Harry, though they didn't seem to be focused on anything at all. His clawed hand felt like ice in Harry's warm, life filled palm. This was a dead creature, then.

"You're an interesting one." His grin split his face in two with a smile full of razors. "I've never met a human quite like you."

"No?" Harry rested his hand back.

"No." Ryuk agreed. "You see, I'm a Shinigami… a death god, you would say in your language. I come from the realm of the dead."

"Like a dementor?" Harry tilted his head curiously.

Ryuk shook his head. "Dementors eat souls. We… collect them." He came close, right to Harry's face, until his dull saffron colored eyes were close enough to see the red in Harry's green. "And we… death gods, have a… culture, I guess you should say."

"Is there a reason you're telling me this?" Harry looked around, a bit nervously. How strange this would look, to everyone else. The battle had just ended. People were grieving. The last thing they needed to see was a giant monster floating around. But the determinedly melancholic hall before him showed no bewildered, appalled faces, and Ryuk continued to blink sightlessly at him.

"Cause you need to know." Ryuk began tactlessly. "You're the king, after all."

Harry choked.

"I'm sorry?"

.

_cage the elephant_

_._

Harry just _knew _those stupid Deathly Hallows were going to be such a pain. It'd be just his luck that trashing one in the forest and hiding the other in Dumbledore's office wouldn't be enough.

The master of death, after all, was him now.

Apparently that title was more than just a frivolous imagination and the joining of the three Hallows.

The master of death, or the Death King, ruled supreme in the dead world. This was a corrupt, lawless world made of dust and crumbling remains, jewels and gambling death gods. And this worthless, desert realm was his domain, where he could do as he pleased. Ryuk said that the only rules Shinigami had to follow were written in their Death Note. Each death god had one, though that wasn't an explicit rule. And Harry, being the king, had no rules at all.

While this greatly pleased him, as he was never much of a law abider anyway, the rest of the deal sounded sort of morbid.

"I think I'll just stay here." Said the Death King, looking a little green at the thought of sitting atop some pyramid of glittering, if not decaying, jewels, crowned in gaudy gold. He'd lead Ryuk to the now deserted Gryffindor common room. Even though Ryuk swore up and down that no one but Harry could see him, Harry preferred not to look like a complete loony talking to himself.

"If that's what you want." The Shinigami said slowly, as if he couldn't possibly understand why Harry would want to stay here.

"It is." He nodded. In his hands was a red death note, adorned with the words written in English. "This is mine?"

"Of course." Ryuk looked as if he'd never heard such a stupid question. "You are the King, my Lord."

"Don't call me that." Harry waved him off. The title hit a little too close to home.

"What should I call you then?"

"Harry. Just Harry." He offered, eyes not leaving the book. Inside it was nothing but a notebook, nothing but sharp lines.

Ryuk eyed him warily, clearly not expecting that answer. "If it's alright with you…" The beast flapped his wings, but Harry could feel no wind.

"When you write a name," Ryuk explained. "Whatever leftover lifespan that person had goes to you."

What an easy way to kill. No jet of green light, no splintered, broken soul. Just a couple of quick quill strokes and a life would leave this world, as if it hadn't had a purpose in the first place.

"To me?" Harry looked up, startled. He snapped the book shut.

"Yep. That's why we don't die." Then he scratched his head. "Well, unless you get too lazy to remember to write in it."

"And that's it?" Harry cut off, voice a little high with disbelief. "That's it? You kill people and then—then what? You keep living, get their extra life span, and continue to gamble around?"

Ryuk shrugged. "Pretty much."

Harry made a face at the very thought. So what was life then? … A useless, inevitable waste that would soon be used to further the machinations of gambling wastrels?

"This is a lot to think on." Said the newly appointed king, sitting himself down in an armchair.

"I'm sure it is." Ryuk agreed, scratching at his shoulder. "Hey, do you got any apples around here? I could sure use one…"

Bewildered, Harry summoned a house elf to fetch him an apple, and true to Ryuk words, the small creature didn't seem to recognize the looming, terrifying presence of the Death God at all. In fact, he only seemed to be enamored with Harry, much to the boy's displeasure.

Even more strange, was Ryuk's apparent fascination with apples.

"You sure do like apples." Harry noted, surprised as Ryuk polished up not one, but _two, _even before Harry had fully handed him the basket.

"They're like… drugs." Ryuk decided upon. "All Shinigami love them."

"Do they?" Harry picked one out of the summoned basket, holding it to his face idly. Ryuk took another joyous bite out of his, Harry continued to squint into the red ocher skin of the apple as if it held the answer to his problems, and life's greater mysterious, as he attempted not to look in the direction of his own Death Note.

The King took a bite out of his own apple, almost dropping it as his tongue seemed to rock with unexpected flavor. It had to be the most beautiful thing he'd ever tasted.

"It's delicious." He breathed, looking down at it in wonder, and repulsion. They'd never tasted like that before—had becoming the master of death truly changed something _physical _about him? Changed how he perceived the world?

"I told you." Chuckled the Death God, before he floated back down onto the opposite armchair of Harry, looking serious (for once).

"Now, about this whole Death King thing…"

Harry waved him off before he could even start. "I don't think this is really the proper time for this." He began, still not looking in the direction of his own. "I've got quite a bit of troubles to fix at the moment, I just finished a war, you see, and I don't yet have the time to fully think on… all the strange endeavors you've presented me with."

"Well of course." Said Ryuk, agreeably. "We—my buddies and I—just wanted to make sure you knew abut all this Death stuff, seeing as though you're our leader now and stuff…

Harry blanche at the very thought. "Yes, well, I'll need a bit of time to fully think on the matter, if that's alright with you."

"Of course it is!" Ryuk nodded hastily, grabbing for another apple and devouring it all. "All the time you need, my king."

Ryuk didn't catch the contrary face his 'king' wore at the very thought of being referred to in any such matter as that.

"Well in that case, if you could come back at a later time…"

"Sure, sure." The Death God stood, stretching out his brilliant, tattered wings. "To summon me, or any of your servants, you just write our names in the first page of the book."

"Only the first page?"

"Well any page." Ryuk shrugged amiably, cracking his neck. "You can't kill a shinigami with a death note."

And at that, Harry wondered _how, _exactly one went about killing a death god—without one of them killing themselves out of laziness. Perhaps what Voldemort _really _should have done to obtain immortality was find these stupid, forsaken items and become the Death King himself. Luckily, he was never unfortunate enough to have to take the task.

Like Harry.

"Well, alright then. I suppose I'll see you soon, then." Bid Harry, as Ryuk gave a low bow, before disappearing from sight completely, and leaving Harry to stare impassively at the red book in front of him.

The wizard was so entranced at the etched embroidery of gold around the solid red book, he hadn't even heard the footsteps padding up the stairs outside, until the portrait swung open.

"Harry?-! Oh, Harry, _there _you are. Thank goodness. Why on earth are you holed up here? We were all so worried…"

Harry allowed his best friend to pull him back down to the hall, wondering what she would think about this matter.

But he himself didn't have much time to think about it, as he was plunged head first into the affairs of fixing Hogwarts, and the Wizarding world at large.

In fact, he didn't think again on that red book until five years later.

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><p><em>I love cage (and you should too) and there will be quite a good selection of indie rock to be heard here. Also, don't expect much from this, I found it lying uselessly underneath the floorboards of my hard drive and after a deep excavation, and quite a bit of touching up, these old bones are finally out for everyone to see.<em>

_well, anyway, review, review, review, REVIEW or I may just exchange my soul for_


	2. Aberdeen

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose, annoyed that the world was so clearly working against him. Again.

"No, no…" He repeated, running a hand through his hair. "I'm aware of the Black estates—and _how _much are the taxes again?"

The goblin didn't look up, seeming to be more interested in perusing his files than deigning him with an answer. Belatedly, Harry noticed that there were quite a few files for him, olden parchment littering the small creature's desk like a sea of paper that seemed to swallow the goblin hole, his inordinately tall stool the boat and the quill the size of his head the mast.

No wonder his taxes were blown so clear out of proportion this year.

"The Black Estates are vast indeed." Replied the goblin after some amount of time. "As are the Potter Estates. Undoubtedly that makes up for the majority of your property tax—

Which, this year, soared to a grand total of _three-thousand galleons. _Hell.

_I bet the Malfoys don't even pay that much. _Harry thought, annoyed. And to think everyone always railed on the Weasley's for their small plot of land—they're _ingenious. _They probably pay what, six sickles a year?

"As well as the Lawliet Estates in Wiltshire—

"Excuse me?" Harry interrupted, blinking. "There must be some sort of mistake… I don't own any property in Wiltshire."

"You own the Black Manor of Wiltshire." Gobhook pointd out. "As well Black Manor Moscow, Grimwauld Place, Black Manor Nice, Black Manor Tuscanny—

"Enough of the Black property!" Harry cut in rather hastily, unsure if he really wanted to know how much land he was truly paying for. It all seemed like quite a waste to him. "What is this Lawliet business about? I've never heard of it before."

Then again, the goblins liked to keep him in the dark about these things—unless they were taking his money, that is.

Small, clawed hands shuffled the vast ocean of papers around, pulling out a long one that looked vaguely familiar.

"Let's see, let's see…" He attached his half-moon spectacles and peered down his long, hooked nose. "Last will and testament of Potter, James, Part Seven Clause Five—in the case of my immediate death, terminate the lasting betrothal—

"Betrothal?" Harry sputtered.

"Contract with Lawliet, William and Lawliet, Chrysanthe. For further details with relations with the Lawliet family, see Part Twenty-two Clause Eight…"

There was more rustling, as the goblin moved further down the long, winding parchment. By the time he reached part twenty-two the top of the will had already fallen off the desk and sprawled on the floor. Harry groaned.

"In the case of the death of Lawliet, William, the estates and finances of the Lawliet family will go to myself or the current Head of the Potter House…" He looked up. "That would be you."

"I don't even know these people!" Harry pointed out, unnecessarily. "Why should I be taxed for them?"

The goblin expression didn't look moved at all. "Well someone has to be taxed for it."

"I don't even live there!" Harry shot up, enraged. "Hell, I don't even live in _any _of these places. I'd sell them all off if I could but there's that stupid ownership clause…"

"Regardless," The goblin dipped his quill, looking entirely uninterested in the logical machinations of Harry's mind, "They are still your responsibility, and therefore, are yours to pay. Also, you've received the entirety of the Lawliet funds, bank statement included in the finance report we've handed to you."

Harry looked back down at it, feeling a bit sick. Paperwork…

"Is there anything else I can clear up for you, Mr. Potter?" Asked Gobhook, already putting away all his files with a wave of his hand.

"No, that's it." _Clearly you all just want to screw me over. _"And I just pay at the front desk?"

"Yes. Have a good day."

"Yeah, you too."

But the sarcasm was lost on the goblin.

The twenty-two year old exited the office with a great sigh, wondering how each year he managed to get tangled up into a bigger mess. All his life he'd longed for independence, and now he was realizing just how tedious being an adult could be. He'd never even heard of these Lawliets, though clearly they were of some amount of wealth, as when he finally managed to get to the front of the line he was stunned to see just how much he'd inherited from them.

_But which one of them died? _He wondered, thinking back on the will. He supposed it hardly mattered.

But that didn't stop his curiosity.

"You invited me to lunch to ask me that, Potter?" Draco sprawled against the back of his chair, looking vaguely exasperated.

To say he and Malfoy were friends would be the biggest overstatement of the year. To say they were enemies though, would be just as folly. They must be somewhere in the middle, Harry decided. Not quite-friends, not quite-enemies.

"That, and I was wondering if you pay as much as I do with these god damn taxes. Am I the only one who thinks this is utterly _wrong_?"

"Get used to it." Malfoy snorted, twirling his fork in his hands, as if he was too good to eat with it. "It's how the goblins make up for the oppression—by taking decent pureblood money."

"So they only tax purebloods?" Harry questioned, confused.

"Of course not. But who else has land?"

Harry supposed this was true. "You have a point… but you still haven't answered my question." He pointed out. "Do you know these Lawliets?"

"Know them?" Draco repeated, hailing the waiter for more tea. "I suppose. They live in Wiltshire as well… however, haven't seen or heard much of them. They don't move in the same circles—if they move in any at all."

Another dead end, then. He'd already asked Ron, who knew little if nothing about other Pureblood families, and Hermione, but she was a muggle-born herself and would hardly know something obscure like that. Neville was at a loss as well, and he hadn't anyone else aside from Malfoy that he knew who could possibly know the answer.

"You haven't heard of any recent deaths, have you?"

The blonde looked affronted. "Do I look like a Wizarding newspaper rag to you? But yes Potter, I have. They say Lord Lawliet was of waning health, and finally passed away some weeks ago. Haven't heard anything else though. If you've really inherited their fortune, you may as well pop over there. That's probably the only way to get a true answer."

_That's what I was afraid of._

"I don't see what you're issue is with this, anyway." Began the blonde anew. "Land is a good thing, Potter. Especially in England. Merlin knows how difficult it is to buy in any magical counties with the real-estate recession these days… No one wants to sell or buy—bollocks, I think. The only way to get out of it is to stimulate the economy again, not that anyone thinks of that."

"I forget you work in finance." Harry rolled his eyes, hoping to avoid another Malfoy rant on the global economy. There always seemed to be an issue with it. Muggles this, muggles that, oil, real-estate… "So there isn't any other way? I have to pay all this money—for what? Wasted land?"

"Stop making a big deal out of it." Malfoy narrowed his eyes. "You get it all back at tax returns—if you file correctly. You _do _know how, right?"

"_Yes._" Harry hissed, without heat.

Malfoy always thought him incredibly dim.

Some things just didn't change.

.

.

.

Considering the recent death of the patriarch, the Manor didn't seem to be suffering at all. Silver wrought gates polished off with gold surrounded the towering oaks of the sprawling, manicured lawns. The winding path went through rose gardens, fairy-fountains and hedges upon hedges of flowers, all eventually coming together to reveal the white walls of the estate, ivy crawling up the marble pillars that gleamed in the afternoon sunlight.

Harry cleared his throat as he made his way up the inordinate amount of stairs, grabbing a golden knocker and about to knock, before the door swung open without his doing so.

The main parlor was vast and seemed to be cut clean of white marble, silver veins running up into the glistening chandelier, which drooped heavily from the arched ceiling, weighed down with glittering crystals.

"Hello?" He called into the enormous chamber, but only his echo greeted him.

He squinted about—even inside, the sunlight from the windows was near blinding.

"You must be Harry. Harry Potter."

He whirled around, looking for the voice.

And there, near the large chrysanthemum centerpiece in the hall, a woman doused in bright light.

"Yes." He nodded, swallowing. "Yes that's me. And…?"

"Chrysanthe Lawliet." She stepped away from the enormous, blooming flowers, revealing a waif-like woman in a palatial ball gown, piles of dark hair precariously falling from her head. "It's an honor to finally meet you."

"Likewise…And I'm, uh, sorry for your loss…"

She waved him off, however.

"And I apologize for not contacting you earlier." She said in reply. "Now, it's almost tea time, isn't it? Would you care to join me?"

"I'd love to." He replied hastily, falling into step with her as she turned to make down a long hallway, careful not to step on the long train of her gown.

"You have a lovely home, Mrs. Lawliet." He added decorously, if not for little else than polite conversation.

The matriarch tilted her head. "It is, isn't it?" She tilted her head, passingly admiring the sun brightened windows with only the slight of her well-shaped eyes."If not rather lonely."

Yes, he imagined these vast chambers to get rather tiring all alone.

She led him to a parlor fit for kings, afternoon tea set with the backdrop of the summer sky and an enormous fountain composed of stone fairies. She took a place on the chaise lounge, and he sat himself opposite, staring confusedly—though he hoped it didn't show on his face—at the amount of spoons laid out for him.

He wondered why she had three places set. Perhaps…

"I'm quite sorry to interrupt you." He began as an afterthought, realizing it was rather rude of him to come without being invited. "I'm sure you were expecting company, and I hadn't written in advance, but I was just recently informed by Gringotts that—

"I know, Mr. Potter." She interrupted, yet somehow still cordial. "It must have come as a surprise for you, and I apologize for that, but my husband and I have always known what James' will said—to speak quite frankly I must say I'm glad for it.."

"Y—You.." He blinked. "You are?"

"Why yes." She replied, pouring herself some tea. "Though none would fault his business, William was… a mild man." She said, diplomatically.

"My condolences."

"No need." Was her immediate answer. "However frank it is for me to say... I don't regret his loss. It came at an unfortunate time, surely, for it was some years late I suspect."

"I'm sorry?"

"If only he had passed sooner… Ah, well, at any rate, you're here now. Tea?" She offered.

"Please." He nodded, for lack of anything else to do.

"You're a good man, Mr. Potter." She began anew, and then with pause, "From what I've read in the papers, at least. You seem to have a perennial fall out with them, however… Especially with that Skeeter fellow."

"We're at odds occasionally." Or rather, all the time. "And I'm not sure that what the Daily Prophet writes about me… is entirely correct."

"How scandalous if it wasn't!" She laughed. "And I don't mind you being the Head of House, if that's what you've come to discuss."

"It is, actually." He took a sip of his tea, setting it down on the blue-accented china carefully. "I was wondering if you might explain to me _why _I'm the head of your house… instead of well…" He faltered. "You, I suppose. Or someone who at least knows of _you. _I hadn't even heard the name Lawliet until that afternoon."

"We're not as sociably as we used to be." She agreed, a light smile on her lovely face. "But there's quite a story behind it, I assure you. The Lawliet family is an old one, but fell out of favor some centuries ago when Lear Lawliet disowned his daughter and split his kingdom—but I suppose that's a story for another time. Well since then, we've always been in an alliance with the Potters, though never through blood."

She looked away then, almost regretfully.

"You probably don't remember, but William and James were always rather disagreeable to each other. Your grandfather always mourned the fact, but there was little he could do about it."

"Disagreeable?" He repeated.

"Oh yes, very." She nodded. "They were never fond of each other. Though to that end… I wasn't very fond of him either. Not after…" She looked away, towards the fountain, her delicate profile bathed in sunlight.

When she looked back at him, there was a certain light to her eyes. "Would you mind terribly if I told you a story?"

"Not at all." He answered quickly and quite genuinely.

She took a sip of tea, before setting it down once more. A house elf came and set down a grandiose centerpiece of biscuits and muffins as she began. "William was pleasant once, though it's hard for me to recall, as in his more recent years he was rather temperamental. But at one point, I'd think that everyone this side of Marseilles was enchanted with him. We both attended Beauxbatons, you know, and everyone loved him there. I thought him quite the catch. And we were happy, for a time. Ecstatic, even, when I was pregnant. Your mother and I would always talk about our children… we had such grand plans for the both of you, even though neither of you were born yet."

"Children?" Harry's brows raised. He hadn't seen any children…

"That's the crux of it though, I suppose." She continued on, as if she hadn't heard him. "We have such elaborate day dreams… they almost seem to carry away with us, and leave reality feeling so very lacking. I hadn't even held him for very long when the healer told us he was a Squib. William was livid, accusing me of all sorts of horrible things. At the time, it was well thought that it was the woman's fault when a child turned into a squib, something to do with eating shellfish…"

"I regret that day so very much, Harry." She looked deeply into his eyes, as if wanting to wrench something out of them. "And I remember it with such detail… I had been writing his name, you see, and I had stopped right on the L. We never agreed on a name, William and I. I always wanted Lysander, but he wanted Lawson, a family name. All we could agree on was the L… and it was all I had written down. William demanded we get rid of him at once—and I… I didn't say anything to oppose it. In fact, I don't think I said anything at all. I was in such shock. How could this baby, the baby I had been wanting for so long—be a _squib? _It seemed so cruel."

"We didn't talk much after that—how could we? He hated me then, for some unfathomable reason. And I was in denial that the whole ordeal had happened. It wasn't uncommon, of course, for a respectable pureblood family to put their squibs for adoption in the muggle world, to kill them, even." She looked down, lashes casting spiking shadows on her pale cheeks. "How awful it was then, and after then, even. We never were the same… I had so many questions for him, about that baby. What did he do with it? Had he killed him? I think, all those lingering questions turned to a stewing anger I never realized myself. It wasn't until he was getting on in his illness, when he started getting feverish, that he told me of the orphanage."

"Orphanage?"

"Yes, Dodson's, I believe." She looked down, once more, and Harry thought he could see her age somewhere—certainly not physically, as her face was as clear and as beautiful as a glamour—in the darkness to her gray eyes.

"I'm… so sorry." He said, for nothing else to say. What could he say? It seemed he was apologizing quite frequently today.

"It was a long time ago." She said, softly.

"But it lingers with you, anyway." He pointed out.

The woman nodded, looking up at him with a certain determination. "Harry I…"

"Yes?"

She faltered, her beautiful gray eyes turning to look out into the garden. "I'm going to ask something entirely selfish of you, Harry."

"What is it?" He asked carefully, stirring his tea.

"Could you find him for me?" She turned back to him, dark curls falling glossily over narrow shoulders. "After William's death, I wanted to contact the orphanage he brought him to… but it was too painful. He must be grown by now—I wonder what he's done with himself? Perhaps something greater than anything I could have imagined for him…" And with a breath, "It's okay if you don't of course. Most likely he's long gone… but I just _have _to know, even if I don't have the strength to look for him myself."

"I'll look for you." He agreed, if only to erase the breathtaking sadness from her face.

"I'll always be in your gratitude." She replied, gravely.

And then she blinked owlishly, as if coming to from a long sleep. "I'm sorry, I must've kept you much longer than you anticipated." Her face turned pleasant once more, an airy, radiantly untroubled look.

"No, it's fine." He set his cup down. "It was rather entertaining… and informative."

"Was it?" She smiled. "I thank you for your time. You're such a charming young man Harry… and you have such beautiful green eyes. Such a curious color…"

"My mother's eyes." He nodded, having heard it many times before.

"Perhaps…but perhaps not." She agreed, almost reluctantly. "Oh, you'll visit an old widow sometime, won't you? I promise I won't bore you with such long stories next time."

"Of course." He replied, though to be quite honest she intimidated him as much as depressed him. There was something rather mournful to Chrysanthe Lawliet, something that didn't sit well with him. Something that could have been…

He stood then, about to make his way back to the main parlor when she pulled him back. "I'll just let myself out…"

"There's no need for that. The wards are yours now, you can apparate as you please." She reminded lightly.

"Are you alright with that?" He'd heard it was rather impolite in explicit pureblood society to apparate in someone's house.

"Are _you_? It is your house, you know."

She stood then, giving him a courteous kiss to the cheek. "Thank you, Harry."

.

.

.

If anything, visiting Lawliet Manor had only left him with _more _questions.

Dodson's wasn't particularly hard to find, however, they were quite confused with his questions. There wasn't any record of a boy who had come some years prior, though in their defense, he had little information to give them. He didn't even know his name. L, perhaps. That was his magical name, at any rate. L Lawliet.

It seemed an entirely useless endeavor, a fruitless search for one muggle in a world full of billions. How would he ever be able to find him?

He returned to his London flat, exhausted after an entire day of visiting Muggle Orphanages, in hopes of finding some trace of a boy who had been there almost two decade ago. It brought up horrible memories that were not-quite his of another dreary London orphanage with iron-wrought gates and a perpetual cloud of glooms. It crossed his mind more than once that he was making a conscious effort not to look at Wool's.

But how ironic would that be?

By the end of the day, he was quite well and ready to call it quits. Perhaps he'd just never see Chrysanthe again, the fair widow of Lawliet Manor. It certainly hadn't hurt him any less to _not _see her for the majority of his life.

"And how does she suppose I find one muggle, one _human, _with nothing but a…"

He stopped his pacing of his bedroom, his eyes lingering unfalteringly on his trunk.

"But a name."

The wizard hesitated, for naught but a moment, before eventually grasping himself once more and wrenched the trunk opening, rummaging through the enlarged chambers until he found the little red book he was looking for.

He brought out a quill as well, opened it to the first page, and swallowed.

_Bring me a servant._

He wrote.

And then waited.

After a few breaths, a giant monster emerged from the air, a strange, sickly looking creature made of black leather and macabre teeth. He wore a bone mask and carried a great, long scythe. At least, Harry assumed it was a he. It certainly didn't look like a _she._

He blinked.

"You're not Ryuk."

"No, no I'm not." The monster agreed. "I am Deridovely, my King. Ryuk is… otherwise engaged. Did you want him in particular?"

"Uh, no that's quite alright." He set the book back down, staring up at a creature he hadn't seen in five years with wonder and rapture. Though he'd kept the book out of sight, that didn't stop his mind from drawing towards it every so often, from every apple tasting like heaven. "I'm in need of your services, I think."

"Ask away."

"Well I'm looking for a human, but all I know is his name."

Harry imagined Deridovely smirking underneath his mask. "That's all you need."


	3. Soil to The Sun

_I... actually had a hard time writing this? Strange, because this was the only chapter I actually had a vague idea of what I wanted to happen in it. _

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.

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In the blink of an eye Harry's mundane apartment warped into a vast, empty landscape. The King blinked, rubbing at his eyes behind his glasses and examining the new world he was transported to. A part of him was almost unnecessarily curious, the other, quite appalled. He'd spent the better part of five years attempting—and succeeding—in forgetting all about this Hollows mess. He was not the Death King, he never met a Shinigami, and there were piles upon piles of paperwork, problems, and politics to eat away at his attention on his way to adulthood and ease him into an ignorant bliss.

But not anymore.

Harry swallowed, deciding that there was no more running away now. It was almost refreshing—and reassuring—to know he could run away from his destiny for such a long expanse of time. But he'd always had the misfortune of being one to face life's problems mulishly and head-on, and now was no exception.

Whatever this world brought on… responsibilities, issues… he'd face them.

As Harry had suspected, the Shinigami Realm was gaudy with tarnished jewels, precious gems sprawled in unending piles amongst a barren landscape. The sky molted into a dull, unseemly irrelevance, a color of which he supposed could be called somewhat of a gray, or perhaps a worn ivory. Either way, nothing about it caught his eye—nor did anything of the ground, a coarse sand of little color. Everything seemed to be without it—a bland mix of indistinct catchings of light.

Except the treasures. Piles of tossed treasures, piled precariously on top of the other.

"This is the Shinigami realm?" Harry asked, looking around.

Deridovely paused, turning to him, almost looking annoyed at such a blatantly obvious question. He refrained from saying anything derogatory, however. Probably because he was the King.

Huh.

He could almost get used to this.

"This is where the Death Gods exist, yes." Replied the reaper eventually. He moved forward, drifting among the sands like a silent, apocalyptic wraith. His scythe trailed after him with an ominous glint of steel.

They passed many of his 'servants', wastrels lazing around among glass pools, the human world bright spots of color in an otherwise bleak landscape.

His previous assumption was correct. This was a savage, anarchical world, with gold and jewels bartered about like despotic money. There were no laws, it seemed—aside from his own.

"_I _make the laws?" Harry repeated aloud, pleased and yet dismayed. He was never much of a rule follower, but nor was he much of a leader. Just the reluctant hero in someone else's elaborate ponzi sheme.

"The Master of Death—The Shinigami King—makes all the laws." Deridovely pulled out a dark book from the depths of his robes. "They're written on the front page."

The Death King peered curiously at the writing. For a moment, it looked illegible, but quickly he began to digest the words. But the event reminded him curiously of another…

"This isn't written in any human language, is it?" He asked abruptly, with rising trepidation.

Deridovely's face was covered entirely by the shadow of his cloak, but Harry could make out him nodding. "This is the language of the Death Gods." He replied.

"You have your own language?" He blinked. Again, he wondered just how much _biologically _being the Master of Death had changed him. It hadn't passed his notice that his sporadic love of apples had only come after he'd become the owner of the Hallows, and this newfound fluency in another language reminded him greatly of his uncanny Parseltongue abilitiy…

And then, after a moment of walking in silence. "What else do you guys have?"

"How do you mean?" Deridovely turned to him. "There are many things unique to us. As you have probably noticed, my King, your servants are of various… creatures."

Monsters, perhaps, may have been the better term.

"Aside from our looks though, the biggest differene between us and humans would be… _The _eyes."

"_The _eyes?" Harry repeated the emphasis with unbidden curiosity.

"The Shinigami Eyes, or Death Eyes." Explained the reaper as they turned around a sprawling landslide of rotting jewels. "Now that you have been to our realm, and claimed your rightful place as King, you'll be able to see all human lifespans."

"… I'll see how long they'll live?" Harry blanched, feeling sick. How could he stomach knowing how long his friends would live for? Knowing their exact moment of death?

"And their full name." Deridovely paused before adding, "It's quite useful when using the notes."

Harry didn't know quite what to say. "Yeah, I suppose it would be…" He agreed half-heartedly, half-formed horror still like lead in his stomach. Merlin, how would he ever be able to face them again?

Deridovely lead the rest of the way in silence, a sojourn through a maundering of vast, jeweled pyramids, before they eventually came towards a looming castle uspide-down in the sky. A wild set of stairs careening through the misty haze to the doorway somewhere where he imagined the moon might have been, had there been a moon.

He swallowed, looking up into the looming, twisting staircase. "And… we're to take those up there?"

Deridovely turned to him, bone white mask the picture of impassivity. "Unless you have a better idea."

_I've never seen such a round-about way of building a castle, _thought the wizard, who was quite used to the backwards way in which the magical society conducted itself. And yet, this was the most backwards thing he'd seen yet. Harry supposed he shouldn't have been so surprised when, on the staircases first corkscrew around, his feet managed to keep him from falling off.

If he thought the staircase grand, it was no surprise when his mouth fell open as they neared the maw of the castle, a great jaw of darkness that seemed to swallow the very fabric of matter itself whole. Deridovely seemed marginally less impressed, floating onwards.

Harry followed quickly, not too keen on getting lost in the parlor knitted with spindly cobwebs, pushing himself through the light gauze to keep up with his wraith-like companion. Their footprints left desolate marks among the dust coating the flooring.

"There's clearly no house elves to clean here." Harry muttered to himself. "Don't they ever clean this place?"

"There's no need."

Harry started, surprised at the booming voice. He turned to Deridovely, who didn't seem to have spoken.

He looked up then, past the regolith thick on the decrepit, broken furniture, towards the spiraling staircase where atop, sat a skeleton on a throne so finally wrapped in jewels he seemed to be made of them.

Immediately the death god stood, descending the staircase with a lurch.

"My king." He kneeled, and Harry was quite repulsed with the hole broken through the top of his skull. "You have returned."

"Err—yeah." Bit of a story to that.

The skeleton stood then. "And in such good health." He added, appraising Harry. "I am called Armonia Justin Beyondormason."

Harry blinked.

"But you may refer to me simply as Justin, my King."

"I'll be sure to do that." The King whispered, more to himself than anything. And he had thought Dumbledore's name a mouthful… "And there's no need for formalities. Just Harry is fine."

The two death gods in his present company turned blankly to him.

"But… you are the _King_." Justin spoke at length.

Harry only stared, uncomprehending.

"To address you as anything else… is considered the highest disrespect." Deridovely added.

_Ryuk didn't seem to mind. _Harry thought, morosely.

"And the King has killed off Shinigami for lesser reasons than that." The reaper mused aloud.

"I can kill Shinigami?"

"Only you." Justin agreed. "We are your servants to command, my Lord."

"I'll tolerate King," He swallowed thickly. "But not _that. _I refuse to be called that."

It struck a _bit _too close to home. Already, he'd begun to notice the startling length of similarities between him and a man who had once been called something the same.

Justin, confused, only turned his blank, rotten sockets back to Harry. "Of course, my King. Your titles are as you please."

Well, apparently if they're only formal enough to be called so.

"Perhaps you'd like a tour of the castle?" Justin spoke again, shaking Harry out of his reverie, and the foreboding feeling in his gut. "I'm afraid it hasn't been cleaned in many centuries… however, at some point it was quite the sight to see."

"Yeah, sure, sounds great." Replied the King numbly.

Beside him, Deridovely shifted uncomfortably. "If there's anything else you require of me, my King… I'd like to get back to gambling."

"Uh, no, I suppose." He turned to the skeleton, who careened some ways taller than him. "Justin can help me out, I'm sure. Thank you for your help."

Again, Harry should have been _too _surprised when great, blackened wings spread from the billowing cloak around the death god, carrying the reaper out one of the decaying holes in the high ceiling, scythe and all.

"You're in need of assistance, my King?" Asked Justin immediately, almost too eager to please him.

"Somewhat, yes." Harry admitted. "I'm searching for someone, you see, and all I have is his name."

"There's no problem with that." Justin was quick to respond, ushering him up the grand stairs the skeleton had just descended. From the parts uncovered by their footprints, Harry could make out that, at one point, this castle must have been quite the sight. Now, however, it seemed dilapidated beyond repair. "However, there _are _a few things you may need to attend to first, now that you are here…"

.

.

.

Their tour of the grand—if not dirty, and relatively corroded—castle was abruptly cut before it could even take fruition, and the most Harry saw of the maze-like structure was the bleak hallway leading from the throne room to the study. Spider webs grew thick like tapestries on the walls, draping from the ceiling in long lines that Harry had to duck under to avoid getting caught in. He caught sight of what could have been a palatial chandelier at one of the forks in the hallway, but it now swung crooked, and seemed to be made of dust and cobwebs.

The majority of what he could see of the castle was untouched over the centuries it had been without a master, aside from the study, which had obviously seen relative use.

And many, many amounts of paperwork.

They sat in piles and crawled to the ceiling like an infestation of molding paper, the eroding smell heady in the musty air of the study.

Harry choked.

Of course, in principal, the idea of being accountable and taking up the responsibility of being the Death King _seemed _noble.

In reality, it was nothing short of tedious.

"These are all for _me_?-!" Harry balked.

Justin nodded, the bones in his neck cracking precariously. "Yes. You've been absent for many years, and of course… shinigami need sustenance…"

"There must be thousands in here!" Cried the Death King, waving erratically at the stacks and stacks of parchment laid on his desk. Admittedly, it was a _nice _desk, made of fine oak and silver finishings. Of course, there was little of it to be seen with the sea of paper overtaking the surface. "How am I to get through all of it?"

Justin turned towards him, empty sockets somehow managing to seem just this side of patronizing. "Well, my King, it _was _a long absence…"

Five years of running away seemed to only amount to five years of procrastinating.

Harry sighed, seating himself on his plush chair, and uncapped a bottle of ink. Justin wavered at the entrance to his study, looking as if he too would rather be out gambling with the rest of his lawless companions. Judging from the amount of dead people, it seemed calling him 'King' was the _only _law they managed to follow.

"Aren't there rules against killing off this many people?" Harry asked, astonished, dipping his quill into the ink well.

"Actually, we shinigami kill off very few humans, considering our life span. In fact, our biggest issue seems to be remembering _to _write in our notes. I know of a great deal of Shinigami too lazy to write in their Death Notes, who end up wasting away to dust."

Staring at the work in front of him, Harry found that rather hard to believe.

"Ah. Well, I'm sure there're things you'd rather attend to." He sighed, not looking up from reading the parchment in front of him. It seemed to be some sort of death receipt, in need of his approving signature at the bottom. He wasn't sure whether to sign it as 'Harry' or 'The Death King'. He decided upon the latter. "You're free to leave."

Justin, from what Harry could tell of his jeweled body, certainly enjoyed gambling, but seemed to hesitate. "Are you certain?"

"Yes." Harry answered without hesitation. "If I require anything, I'll be sure to summon you with my note."

"I'll take my leave then, my King." Bowed the skeleton, before he too left the King to his own devices.

Which, at this moment, was signing off on thousands of human deaths. Harry shivered. Was this what Voldemort had wanted to be, all along? The master of _paperwork_?

_I'd trade with you. _Harry thought morbidly. _If you really wanted to be the master of death that badly…_

Oh hell, that old man was probably laughing in his grave.

This was mad.

Absolutely _mad._

About two hours in—or what he assumed to be two hours, for his perception of time seemed to be drastically warped here—Harry had begun to understand the pattern of forms, finally getting the hang of signing his name on other human's death warrants, and had actually begun to pick up speed. Clearly his servants weren't all that creative, for the majority of these unnatural 'natural' causes of death were heart attacks.

Well, except for the this one, anyway.

Harry picked up the form he was currently, half-mindedly perusing through. After the hundreth one or so he started feeling less sympathetic for his fellow—or perhaps not so fellow—humans and was reading more or less for entertainment, when he spied what could possibly be the most original death yet. Apparently, someone had actually used the Death Note to not only kill someone by making them write a note in their own blood before their death. Hell, they even put what to _say, _and even when to move on to the next stanza.

"Who makes people write their own suicide notes?" He wondered aloud. "That's sick."

Well actually, what was more sick was that he was getting passing entertainment out of someone else's twisted killing. He almost felt marginally bad for that, when something else caught his eye. Harry looked down, spying the author of this particular death…

"Light Yagami…" He read aloud, wondering why that sounded so god damn familiar. Did he know of a Light Yagami? It certainly wasn't a common name. Or a wizarding name, for that matter. In fact, it didn't even sound English.

The Death King paused. "Hold on.."

Harry dug back into the many piles of signed death warrants surrounding his feet, pulling up a handful and looking over them once more.

No wonder the name was so familiar.

It was on _every _single one of these.

He frowned, pulling more from around his chair. They were all from Light Yagami. Which one of his servants was that? He wasn't even sure. And what purpose could he possibly have for killing off this many people? Harry paused then, shaking his head.

_Well, I could always ask._

The Death King whipped out his own notebook, which was becoming rather handy as of late, and wrote down the name on the first page of his book, designated only for summoning servants.

_Light Yagami._

He waited for a few moments. And then, a few more after that.

No one came.

Perhaps he was just a tardy shinigami? No, if there was one thing these lazy, corrupt beings followed, it was his word. Harry doubted this Light Yagami was ignoring him purposefully. Maybe he was too busy gambling? Or, maybe he was already dead. But that didn't make any sense… Shinigami couldn't die unless they forget to add onto their lifespan, and quite clearly he wasn't in any danger of that. Some other Shinigami could have killed him, the Death King supposed. Probably over some stolen jewels.

Or…

Or, perhaps he wasn't a Shinigami at all.

A _human _had done all this? Had wasted all these lives—and given him all this god damn paperwork—over _what?_

The angel of death abruptly stood up in a fit of frustrations, paper feathers fluttering to the ground.

"Oh, _bloody _hell." He cursed, realizing what he'd done. His magic had erupted around him with his emotions, sending the majority of the paper in the room to the air with a mighty whoosh.

He stood among the maelstrom, irked beyong belief and realizing quickly that he had gotten _absolutely nowhere _and had forgotten the specific reason he'd come here in the face of all this paperwork (which had become second-nature for him to do, after many years as a paper-pushing Auror)

Furiosly, he penned down Justin's name.

The servant responded promptly, this time with a significant increase in jewelry, all hanging lopsided about his bony neck as if he'd left in the middle of something.

"Yes, my King?" He asked, breathlessly, which must have been some feet for a skeleton without lungs.

"I need you to look for someone for me. A human by the name of L Lawliet."

And then, with a pause, and no small amount of irritation;

* * *

><p>"And find me this Light Yagami too."<p>

_I'm so happy everyone likes this story! :D it was a real dark horse to me... I had sort of posted it as a whim and then decided that if everyone really wanted more to it, I wouldnt mind terribly to oblige... so if you want more tell me what you think and review!_


	4. Tiny Little Robots

_Things I should explain but am generally too lazy to do so:_

_-No, Light isn't dead! That would be incredibly lame. I probably didn't capitalize on this enough, but the front page of Harry's notebook acts solely as a summoning for his Shinigami. I imagine it like Tom Riddle's diary, where the ink cools and eventually fades to leave more room. He can't kill anyone on this page—and he didn't have a face anyway—only summon servants. _

_-Harry can be seen by other humans when he chooses._

_-It's been five years since he's discovered the death note—not five years since he met Chrysanthe Lawliet! Pretty much its been five years since the first chapter and the second picks up immediately after._

* * *

><p>Justin rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Right now… my King?"<p>

Harry folded his arms, rather impatiently. "Well preferably, yes."

Justin twiddled his bony thumbs, if possible looking even more absurd in all his gaudy jewelry, weak laughter coming out of his bony trachea. "Uh, well, actually…"

Luckily for the Death King's right hand, he was saved the misfortune of having to explain, as all of Harry's attention was quickly enraptured by the entrance of another Shinigami. Gukku hobbled in, accidentally bumping one of his large, ox-like horns catching on the side of the bookshelf, and sending an inordinate amound of papers to the floor. Harry cried in dismay.

The goat Shinigami backtracked quickly. "My King!" He sputtered loudly. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there…"

"Gukku you fool!" Justin barked, taking the opportune and rather fortunate moment of reprieve to hastily bend down and collect the paperwork. "Have you no manners?"

"I apologize again, my King." Said Gukku, skeletak snout bowing low, revealing the decaying furs around his neck to Harry's repulsed eyes. "I wasn't informed of your arrival—

"Neither was I." Harry waved him off. He waved his wand to re-stack the fallen papers, leaving Justin once more to awkwardly stand at his King's attention.

"I was just coming to—ah, '_inform'_," He coughed, pawing at the ground with his hoofed foot. "Justin that his… money… needs to be collected."

"Money?" Harry echoed, brow raised. He turned to Justin. "You're gambling with… 'money'?"

"Of a sort." The skeleton rubbed the back of his head.

Harry supposed it really wasn't his problem what the Death Gods did in their spare time. Not when he rarely had any for himself… And speaking of that… "Anyway, like I said before, I'm trying to locate a human. Well, _humans_."

"I'd be happy to be of service!" Gukku cut in immediately, standing on his hind legs and pulling out his book, looking eager to solidify his King's good graces. "Whom are you looking for, my King?"

"L Lawliet." He repeated, leaning against his desk. "And Light Yagami."

At this, Gukku dropped his book. Along with a heavy bracelet or two. They clattered to the floor and he hastily bent to pick the up, chuckling weakly.

Harry raised a brow, turning towards Justin, who was having a similar reaction.

He hazarded a guess. "Let me just _stab in the dark _here," He began with sarcastic bemusement. "But this seems to be somewhat of a problem."

"A problem?" Justin was quick to echo. "No, no, of course not! It's just that…"

He turned helplessly to his companion.

Gukku only looked back nervously.

"Well, it's just that…" The skeleton swallowed. "We've been placing bets on them."

"Them?" Harry repeated, surprised. "They know each other?"

The two shinigami shared another look. Gukku spoke first. "Ah, well, they haven't exactly met face to face yet…"

"But they know _of _each other." Justin added.

"And still both of you are reluctant to explain this to me." Harry surmised with accurate perception, though at this point the two were so transparent he could see the wall behind them. The shinigami had the good decency to look a bit guilty, but nevertheless remained quiet. Harry scratched his head, before finally moving to walk back around his desk.

He brought his quill once more to the summoning page. It must certainly be something important for both of them to so blatantly disregard his word—and had certainly piqued his own interest. He quickly wrote down Ryuk's name, and waited.

He was the only other Shinigami Harry knew of, and something told him that perhaps Ryuk would give him the answer…

"My King?" Justin called, hesitantly. "What is it… that you're doing?"

"You're not killing any of them, are you?-!" Gukku interrupted. Justin turned to him scathingly, and the goat backtracked. "I mean… you're decisions are your own of course, my King. I'm just… ah… curious…"

"Because you have a vested interest?" Harry raised a brow coolly, before shaking his head. "No, I haven't killed of either of them."

At that, the two seemed to sag with visible relief.

He tapped his chin. "Of course, I couldn't have, seeing as though I need a face _and _a name to kill, right?" He glanced back down at the name he'd written on his summoning page, already beginning to dry. "No, I'm just summoning another Shinigami. Perhaps I'll get a straight answer out of him."

"We're not trying to be disrespectful, my King." Justin was quick to explain. "We're just… well, we _can't _summon them. Well, I suppose technically we could…"

"But it would be detrimental to—

"Your gambling?" Harry cut in.

"Well, that," Justin admitted. "But also the events unfolding on Earth. For the two of them to disappear at such an inopportune moment... it would…" He trailed off.

"The whole thing would erupt into chaos!" Gukku ended.

Harry cocked his head, confused. "What '_whole thing'_?"

The two were saved from answering, as _finally, _Ryuk appeared in the office, unfurling his wings and spreading out his wingspan until the tips touched the walls end to end. He grinned eerily at Harry, who still had his arms crossed, frowning.

"You summoned me?" The giant shinigami asked, dropping onto the ground.

"I was hoping you could enlighten me on a few points." Harry explained. "I'm looking for two people—two rather specific people—and neither of these two," He jerked towards the cowed looking shinigami, "Have the guts to tell me. Do you?"

Ryuk laughed. "Technically I have no digestive system, so no." And then, with another smirk, "But that's never stopped me from eating any apples."

"Well, I'm looking for L Lawliet and Light Yagami."

Ryuk choked.

"Have you seen either of those?"

It seemed that perhaps the cocky shinigami didn't have the balls after all. "Well… actually…" And then, scratching his head. "Well damn. Why are you looking for those two?"

"One of them has given me a shit ton of paperwork." Harry pointed to a stack at the corner of his desk—certainly smaller than the others, but still quite a bit for one human to accomplish—"And the other…"

He paused.

"His mom's looking for him."

Ryuk blinked at him. "So… you don't know anything about it at all?"

Harry blinked back, unfolding his arms. "Know about what?"

He turned accusingly towards the other two. "Justin!" He barked. "Aren't you his right-hand man? Why are you slacking off?"

"Slacking off?" The skeleton repeated, affronted. "I'll have you know I've been busy—

"Gambling." Gukku cut in under his breath.

"—and simply haven't the time! Not that it's my responsibility to tell him of _your _foolish, meddling plans!"

"But you've probably got three Death Note's and King Tut's scrotum holder on the outcome, don't you?" Ryuk chortled. "But I suppose you're right. I always knew this day would come."

Quite irritated, Harry swiftly cut in between their banter. "Knew _what _day would come? Knew of _what?_" He glared arrestingly at them all.

Justin squared his bony shoulders, giving an irritated, magniloquent huff. "Ryuk here thought it would be an—" And at this, he added scathingly, "_entertaining _idea to drop his Death Note _accidentally _into the human world."

Harry turned to Ryuk, who made no move to deny, before motioning for Justin to continue.

"Anyway," Justin coughed, "It was inevitable a human was going to find it. This human was Light Yagami. He seems like a predictably boring guy, but he surprised us all by being some sort of pompous, self-evocating religiously inspired god who has since been attempting to rid the world of criminals and reshape it into his desired image of…"

He looked helplessly to his two companions, who didn't seem up to the challenge of explaining what was clearly become the complex ostentatious character of Light Yagami.

"Well, I'm not sure exactly what he's going for."

"I always thought it was kind of a cross between Hitler and Kim Jong Il." Gukku added unhelpfully.

Harry sat onto the edge of his desk.

Finally, he looked to all of them, green eyes wide. "You're serious." He said rhetorically. Nothing on their faces belied a shitty joke.

And then, after a deep breath;

"I'm not going to lose my temper."

Though it seemed more to himself than to his servants.

For a brief, terrifying moment, Harry could almost relate to Voldemort. Is this what it would feel like to have Peter Pettigrew and a thousand other _morons _groveling at your feet in mild stupidity? He hadn't even been here all that long, and already he was getting that

In a display of uncharacteristic vesuvian behavior, Harry blew up. Literally.

All the paperwork he had so studiously scrawled upon, attempted to file and placed around himself took to the air in an eruption worthy of eloquently named Scandinavian volcanoes, covering the office in fluttering white.

Amidst his successfully terrified servants and destroyed room, the Death King rubbed delicately at his temples, a pinched, contrary expression to his face. And he thought he'd gotten away from all the idiots of the world… no, clearly the afterworld was full of them as well.

After finally regaining his composure, he stood.

The shinigami watched him warily from their spot near the door, as if debating the likeliness of ending up blown up as well.

"You!" He barked suddenly, startling everyone in the room, but specifically pointing to Justin. "You're going to fill out the rest of my paperwork."

Justin's jaw dropped open, looking characteristically affronted. Gukku chortled, but Harry quickly rounded on him as well.

"And you," He narrowed his eyes. The goat shrank back. "Are going to order and file them by date of death."

"And _you_," He finally turned to Ryuk, who seemed mostly expressionless, aside from his debatably winsome grin, "Are coming with me."

"This is getting sorted out _right now." _He said, addressing all of them.

Feeling more annoyed and self-righteously justified than the time he had caught both Creevey brothers attempting to take pictures of him in the shower, he caught Ryuk by the scruff of his towering neck and hauled him out the door.

.

.

.

On the way back down to Earth, Harry had enough time to push aside his anger in favor of his utter bewilderment at his own actions. He'd never been so… annoyed? Frustrated? Angry? He wasn't even sure. At any rate, he was even a bit scared of himself, at all the changes being the Death King made him. For one, he no longer needed his glasses, and for another, he had _wings._

"They could be worse." Ryuk chided delicately, as Harry plucked at them in disgusted, morbid curiosity. "They actually look a bit… fitting."

"Fitting." Harry repeated, bitterly.

Just what he needed. Now not only was he the Death King, he also looked the part.

He tested the motions out, pleased to take to the air with a gentle float. A push of his powerful wings and he shot straight into the sky. He admitted privately to himself that he greatly enjoyed the wings, out of all the other encumbering obligations being Death King gave him. It almost made up for all the crap he got in return.

The wizard looked back at Ryuk.

Almost.

He landed easily enough, in a quiet, slumbering suburb that didn't look all that different from Privet Drive—much to his silent horror.

Ryuk nudged his large head in the direction of one of the houses on the darkened street. It was entirely dark, aside from one window, dimly lit behind an effusion of dark curtains.

"That's where he lives?"

It was… absurdly normal for a terrifying megalomaniac.

Then again, no one thought a little orphaned half-blood could turn into one of those either.

How deceiving.

"Why, Ryuk?" Harry turned to him, brutally honest.

The shinigami turned back to him, before shrugging. "I was bored."

It was only a stroke of fortune for the shinigami—or perhaps misfortune of the young wizard's—that allowed him to cruelly sympathize with the death god before him. For a brief moment, he saw with startling clarification the life Shinigami must live. An eternal ennui with no exit.

But how was he any different now? He too would suffer an eternity of boredom—he too would eventually forget what amusement felt like, forget anything but dexterous lassitude, lost in a tedious monotony.

He wasn't even human anymore.

Hadn't been, for almost five years now. He'd been going through the motions, filing taxes, mulling about the Ministry, getting drinks with Ron—acting human, donning the clinging mortal skin, but never truly achieving that ignorant obliviousness.

"My King?" Ryuk called hesitantly, crashing him back to a planet he no longer belonged to. "Are you going to speak with him?"

"I…" Harry swallowed, eyes searching for something he could no longer see. A mortality he no longer had.

He took a deep breath. "No."

Ryuk blinked curiously at him.

"I'll let this run its course." Even as the words came out of his mouth, he felt a bit sick. Felt a lot like Dumbledore, actually. Condemning thousands to die for the greater good.

Ryuk didn't call out of him as he flew away.

.

.

.

He tried to console himself, of course. Attempted to rationalize that he shouldn't meddle in human affairs—considering he wasn't a human himself.

_The wizarding world does this all the time. _He reminded himself. _Stays out of Muggle stuff and let them figure it out themselves._

It wasn't helping.

It must be his hero complex, the Death King thought morosely, that was keeping him from his satisfied contentment.

Wizarding London had never seemed so reassuring, and yet so far away. He didn't feel welcomed in the ebbing tides of chattering shoppers, and probably wouldn't feel any better in his flat either. A part of him wanted desperately to visit the Burrow, to once more feel that sense of belonging the lopsided, cozy house had always offered him, and yet he was also terrified that he would feel just as lost and alone as he did here.

He wandered some, sparing a look towards the Weasley Emporium, as if to feel a spark of _something _with a lingering gaze.

He didn't.

Somehow he ended up apparating once more at the Lawliet Manor, deciding that he should at least inform Chrysanthe that her son was very much so alive. Alive and…

He paused.

And what?

The Wizard could have hit himself.

All his self-loathing and confusion—and amidst all these revelations he had completely forgotten his intended purpose! Sure, he'd heard all about Light Yagami and his homicidal streak the size of the Asian continent and then some, but Justin had completely neglected to explain how L fit into this machination.

After a moment of deliberation, the wizard turned away from the lonely, looming house, and opened his wings, setting once more for Japan.

This time, he'd figure it out himself.

Clearly his servants were incompetent—or perhaps just intentionally unyielding—on the matter, and he'd have to figure out what was going on himself.

_I'm only going to get to the bottom of this. _He promised himself, eagerly apparating to Japan once more. _I'm not going to interfere._

* * *

><p><em>Thanks for all the reviews! To be brutally honest, they're the only reason this story exists. A lot of authors say they have inspiration or generally enjoy writing they're stories-I mean I do, but it would have stayed a oneshot for the rest of its days if I hadn't had such positive feedback. <em>

_So review or else it will stay a fourshot? Haha. _


	5. Judas

_You people are so lovely (: Don't fear, the inspiration for this story hasn't run out... _

_YET. _

* * *

><p>Actually, he knew himself well enough to know he probably would anyway, but thankfully never had the opportunity to prove it. He had barely lifted off the ground—thankfully—when he heard someone shout his name.<p>

Startled, the Death King plummeted quickly back to earth, landing flat on his face.

"Harry!—_Harry_?"

His response was muffled by dirt.

Annoyed, he rubbed it out of his face and peered aggravatingly upwards, only to find Hermione curiously peering downwards.

"Now how in Merlin's name did you end up on the floor?"

_I wonder. _Harry thought, sardonically. He chanced a glance back towards his wings, which fluttered in an imperceptible wind, leathery, dark feathers twitching with every move of his shoulder blades. He turned back to Hermione, who wore nothing but a predictably confused, but amiable face.

And the numbers.

_She can't see them._

For a moment he was sure he'd vomit all the nonexistent things he'd eaten, and was immeasurably glad that the numbers glowing red atop her honey curls meant absolutely nothing to him. However, even though he couldn't tell the exact date of her death, the fact remained that they would forever be counting _downwards. _

Hermione was mortal.

And inevitably, she'd die as well.

The witch was still oblivious to Harry's minor meltdown, waiting slightly impatiently for any kind of response, and Harry quickly went onto autopilot.

"I—" He coughed, awkwardly. "Well I fell."

"How did you manage that?" She wondered aloud, before shaking her head. "Oh nevermind that, what are you _doing _here Harry? How have you been? It's been ages since I've seen you last!"

"Ginny's birthday, was it?" He grinned roguishly, the movement of his mouth feeling sour and difficult, getting off the ground and dusting himself off. "I'm doing…" He paused. "Well." The word fermented on his tongue. "How are _you_?"

"Busy." She answered immediately, but jovially. "The Ministry always seems to keep me occupied—more so than I would like, sometimes. And of course, Mrs. Lawliet—

"Mrs. Lawliet?" Harry interrupted, bewildered. However this would explain her confusing location. "How do you know her?"

Hermione tilted her head curiously. "I don't really know her, I suppose." She began, looking surprised at his question. "The Minister himself asked me to survey the grounds behind her house. _Merlin _Harry they've been untouched for years! The creatures that live back there… I was actually about to write Neville and see if he'd like to take some samples of the plants back there. She's got quite the extensive garden, you know." And, as if catching herself rambling, she paused. "How do _you _know her?"

Harry supposed he could tell her the truth. "I… inherited her land."

"Really?" She quirked her head.

"It's a bit of a long story." Harry nodded. "But to make it short, I've recently come into an annoyingly large sum of land—but I haven't any idea _how _and haven't a clue why. Is there any way to get rid of it?" He ended, shriveling his nose.

Hermione gave him a chiefly amused look, snorting. "Oh, Harry." She patted his shoulder fondly. "How I've missed you. You're the only wizard I know who _doesn't _want land."

"But Hermione." He whined affectionately. "You're a Creature Right's enthusiast! Please tell me you know how to get around all these crazy goblin rules."

"Try crazy _Wizarding _rules." Hermione chided him, looking happy to ignore his complaints completely. "Now, what are you up to right now? I'm incredibly happy to see you and we simply _must _catch up. Won't you join me for tea?"

_Like you've given me any choice now… _Harry mentally sighed _So much for going back to Japan. I guess Light Yagami is just going to have to wait._ Outwardly he smiled feebly. "I'd love to Hermione."

She clapped her hands. "Fantastic! I know just the place!"

.

.

.

Harry was beginning to feel like his life was a lot of procrastinating and getting waylaid by unintentional jackassery. Though some of it was his fault, invariably a lot of it had to do with his downright shitty luck. It certainly wasn't Hermione's fault that the posh new tea fusion café would be jammed full of his adoring, prepubescent fans, and after an assload of time signing his name until his fingers fell and smiling until his bones hurt, they finally managed to secure a secluded booth, which just so happened to be right next to one Draco Malfoy.

The hostess moved out of the way to reveal the blonde to their vision, nestled comfortably into his own booth, one arm draped on the back of his chair and the other holding the newspaper he was languidly perusing. Almost immediately did Hermione blanch, and begin to turn around—most likely to ask for another one.

"There's no need to cause such a fuss for me." Malfoy drawled, causing Hermione to pause mid step. Harry studied the blonde, the eerily glowing numbers and his equally eerie name. _Draco Lucius Malfoy, June 5__th__, 1980. _Already that was more than he wanted to know.

Hermione, somewhat shamefully after being so blatantly rude, turned back around. On her face however, was nothing but slightly masked, revolted anger.

Some wounds just heal real, real slowly.

"Malfoy." She said, jerkily.

"Granger." Malfoy spit, which was as close to courteousness as it would ever get.

Harry gave him a debatably amicable nod that was returned by one of cordial indifference. Which said a lot, coming from him.

"Top of the morning, no?" The blonde remarked, sipping his cup. The majority of his table was blanketed with a variety of Magical and Muggle newspapers, most of which Harry noted had something to do with stocks and macroeconomics.

"Yes, quite." Hermione replied with brisk dismissal, seating herself so Malfoy's sprawled form was entirely covered from view by the coiffed mane of her curls. She smiled, almost too broadly, and overtly attempted to promptly forget of his existence. "So, so, how have you been? You're being intentionally vague with me, I know."

"Not intentionally." Harry mumbled, burying himself into his menu. He tactfully didn't remark on the 'vague' part of that sentence. "I've been… experiencing new things."

_And really should be getting back to that pretty soon. _He thought with a bristle. How he had managed to wrestle down the terrible beast that was his hero-complex for the last hour and a half was beyond him, but it was a losing struggle. The thought of someone using the Death Note—a powerful tool which left no traces of evidence behind—for wrong-doing really rubbed his Gryffindor side the wrong way.

A sense of morbid curiosity was taking over him as he pulled himself out of his musings to find he had been staring at the numbers above her head. It was only the sickest of fascinations that held him enraptured by the dwindling, senselessly long number. What could it mean? Was it a long lifespan? He surreptitiously eyed the top of Malfoy's head. His was an entirely different number. Was that a good thing?

Hermione huffed. "You're so secretive these days." She commented idly, sending a sting to his stomach. And, in what could only be the most socially acceptable reason to fall off the face of the map, she added, "Are you seeing someone?"

Why is that everyone's first assumption?

"_No_." Harry denied, perhaps too quickly.

"You can tell me, you know." Her eyes gleamed wickedly. "I won't say a word."

Perhaps not her, but Harry was fortunate enough to know that the walls had ears. He was saved by the opportune waitress, who came promptly for their orders.

Across the booth, Malfoy snorted.

Hermione made a brave show of ignoring him, but Harry noticed she couldn't help the neurotic twitching of her left brow.

There was a moment in which Harry thought there may have been a chance she would simply continue to pretend he didn't exist, but then her heard craned towards him with agonizing slowness.

"Do you need something, Malfoy?"

The blonde peered over his newspaper. "From _you_?" How he managed to pull the inflection of such unadulterated loathing into two simple words was beyong the Death King.

Hermione was neither deaf nor oblivious. She threw up her hands. "I can never win with you, can I? If I'm polite, you're downright rude—if I'm rude, you're still a pompous toerag anyway."

"Coming from you, it hardly means much anyway." Malfoy replied scathingly, narrowing his eyes. "And if you think I haven't noticed you and Kingsley sending Flotts around to watch my ever move, you're sadly mistaken. Why anyone would let a buffoon like that anywhere near the markets is _beyond _me—how you always assume I'm up to nefarious purposes, even more so."

Harry debated whether perhaps he should step in, but the moment was lost when the witch cut him off.

"Assuming?" Hermione echoed, indignant. "Please, with your lot, there isn't any need to guess. Everyone knows you guys play dirty, inside trading, under the counter deals…

"I haven't any idea what you're talking about." The blonde sniffed. Debatably this was true. Narcissistic asshole he may be, but Malfoy hadn't done anything particularly, or _intentionally _cruel in some time. However, Hermione only seemed to see the worst in him, and he to her.

Malfoy sneered, adding, "And I'm sure _you're _part of the lot that's got Grindlewald walking free next afternoon, are you?"

Hermione turned around fully at that, gaping. "_What_?" She shrieked. Though surprisingly, her righteous anger didn't seem to be directed at Malfoy at all. "How is—That's… that can't be…" She floundered, before collecting herself and huffing, "Of course I'm not! I've never even heard of this! It's preposterous! The very idea of it is absurd."

Malfoy's bland look only seemed to convey what he thought of this. "I can assure you, I feel the same. However, that doesn't change the fact it's happening."

Hermione looked enraged. "I'm sure Kingsley would never let something like that happen. Think of all the safety issues, all the laws they'd be breaking—

"Apparently he's petitioned for release followed by execution." Malfoy cut in drily. "And without Dumbledore on Wizengamot, no one seems to have a problem with it."

Hermione blinked, stunned. "But it's obviously a trap!"

Malfoy shrugged. "It's within his legal rights."

"Gellert Grindlewald…" Harry repeated aloud. "Who was that again?"

Malfoy and Hermione balked at him.

"You're joking." Malfoy, said, conclusively.

Hermione palmed her face.

"It sounds familiar." Harry protested. "I've definitely heard of him before. Was he in Professor Binns class?"

"Of course." Malfoy breathed, scathingly. "Were you so busy with the current Dark Lord you forget the _other _one? Honestly Potter, aside from evading death, did you learn _anything _in the last seven years?"

"… I learned how to duck." Harry retorted feebly. In his defense, that skill had saved his life multiple times.

"At any rate," Hermione cut in hastily. "How do you know they're releasing him? And under whose authority? How in Merlin's name could anyone think this a good idea?-!"

Malfoy shrugged, as if to remind her this wasn't his fault. "He's been in there for… almost seventy years now. You tell me."

"Seventy years?" Harry echoed. Hell. That guy must be ancient.

Hermione stirred her tea with more force than necessary. "That doesn't mean he's any less dangerous." She sniffed. "It's _Grindlewald. _Why, if it wasn't for Dumbledore… who knows what he could have done."

_Ah. _So it's _that _Gellert.

For a moment, Harry wondered if they knew anything about Dumbledore's past with the man. After a beat of deliberation, he decided _he _wouldn't be the one to tell them. Hermione may already know, considering it was her who was perusing that coot's old book about the two of them in the first place.

Regardless, conversation—if it could even be called such—turned stale quickly after that. Hermione's shoulders stayed rigid and hunched, and Malfoy hadn't even the common decency to send a scathing remark their way when Hermione spoke of her muggle parents. If that hadn't already alerted Harry that something was deeply amiss, it would have been his own treacherous train of thought.

At some point after the cheque, Harry decided to address the elephant in the room. "So when's he being released?"

"There's no way they've made a decision yet." Hermione was quick to say.

At this, Malfoy put down his paper, and took out his pocket watch. "I'm sure he's on his way to the Ministry right now."

"So soon?" Gasped Hermione, looking rightfully both bewildered and somewhat enraged. She was the head of her own department after all, the very idea of being left out of the loop of something so substantial was most likely a grievous aggravation.

The blonde stood, tucking the watch into his breast pocket and adjusting his cuff links. "Potter," He nodded and then added, "…Granger." With considerable less heat than earlier. "I'd best be off. I'm meant to follow in with the dear old Minister and meet with the lawyers."

And, to Hermione's sharpened gaze, "The _prosecutors._"

And with that, he was off, blending in with the tide of people flowing about Diagon Alley.

The witch turned to him, eyes hardened. "We're going too."

.

.

,

The moment the old man shuffled out of the carriage—and surely, he was old and weak, there was no denying that, this man couldn't possibly hurt a fly—Hermione turned livid, shaking with fury beside him and almost causing the very ground around them to tremor.

"This is mad." She hissed under her breath. "Absolutely mad. I don't know what Shacklebolt is thinking but I can _assure _you I'll get to the bottom of this. You stay here Harry, I'll be right back… after I have a little chat with our new Minister."

The young witch snapped on her heel then, long curls bouncing as her heels clicked against the Ministry's marble tile, and most likely would continue to do so all the way up to Shacklebolt's office. Harry didn't envy the guy. The wizard took another appraising look around at the amassed—and mostly outraged—crowd. Hermione and Malfoy surely weren't alone in their anger.

The Aurors were having a hard time parting the sea of furious wizards, but managed to do so after what seemed to be a supreme effort in politeness. The criminal had his hood up, wrists chained in front of him, shuffling along with a bubble of guards walking in time with him. It was second nature that Harry gripped his wand tightly, almost for security, when faced with the only other living Dark Lord in existence.

The crowd slowly parted, and Harry hadn't even realized the people shuffling out of the way around him until he was the only one left. He thought briefly that the Aurors would ask him to move as well, but none did, bowing their heads and moving to go around him.

This close, he could almost _feel _the darkness of the other man, could see death upon his shoulder in his astoundingly small glowing red number, ticking away slowly but surely. It was certainly the smallest number Harry had seen so far, and was a veritable indication that Grindlewald had truly come here to die.

Even so, this was a powerful man. A powerful, _mad _wizard who had once come as close to destroying the world as Voldemort had. Harry could even see some of himself in the older man as he leveled with the younger wizard, his ambition, his drive, the calamitous darkness within both of them.

And then he paused.

Harry swore he felt his heart drop, drop and pause somewhere in his stomach as his throat clenched and he felt the hairs on his neck rise.

Grindlewald's face was obscured by his dark cloak, and all Harry could see of it was dirtied grime and wiry, gray hair.

They seemed to cause quite the spectacle, halting this death-procession in its infancy, the very crowd around them breathlessly hushed in tandem like a single organism, even the guards freezing in their steps.

"That was my wand, once." The terrifying wizard remarked. The raspy words seemed to painfully claw at his throat.

Harry's eyes widened.

"They all were mine, once."

The guards moved to cover him once more, and the parade of Aurors continued onwards as if nothing had happened, no evidence that the man had even spoke to him, aside from the fervent whispers making their rounds around the wide-eyed crowd. Harry paid them no attention, however, walking briskly to catch up to Grindlewald's procession.

He managed to finally meet them in one of the long stretch of corridors that lead to the Minister's office, thick with draping darkness and the echoing sounds of solemn footsteps.

"Hold on a minute!" He called, racing forward.

The group paused, and he could make out a couple Aurors he was familiar with.

"Potter!" One said, surprised. It looked to be Angelina's younger brother. "What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to him." He replied insistently, not answering the question at all. "Alone."

"Alone?" Another, who also seemed vaguely familiar, squawked. "Potter, are you mad?"

But Angelina's brother elbowed him. "Are you sure?" He chanced a glance towards Grindlewald, who seemed rather harmless now, guarded and shackled and wandless. But his infamy gave the guards discretion.

"I'm sure." Harry said, firmly. "It's about…—about the war."

A couple of the Aurors looked stricken, but at this they all hastily backed off. He pursed his lips in careful deliberation, before finally warning, "Five minutes Potter. And we're only right down the hall." He gave him a long look over his shoulder, but quickly shepherded his other guards away, leaving Harry and this old, brittle man to themselves.

Once they had left, Harry quickly whirled around. "What do you know about them? Have you met them? The Death Gods? How did you—"

Grindlewald raised his hands to quell the onslaught, shackles trembling at his wrists. "I'm afraid I won't be able to answer very many of your questions… The Hollows were mine for a very brief amount of time."

"So it is about the Hollows…" Harry breathed, more to himself than his current company. "And you saw them?"

"I saw them." The man nodded, graying whiskers obscuring most of his grim visage.

"And did they take you to their realm?"

"Oh no, I hadn't the time for that. It was in the heat of the war—I was at my prime. I didn't think much of these objects, aside from that they were precious weapons. The idea of the Death Note was alluring, yes, but I never had the chance to utilize one. They had only come to me hours before my infamous duel with Albus, you see."

"So…" Harry blinked, slowly. "So you never used the Death Note to kill? At all?"

"No." At this, he almost sounded a little wistful. "I would have liked to, of course. That kind of power…"

He paused, shaking his head. For a moment, he looked incredibly old, wise, even, eyes drawn in a recollection Harry couldn't see. "I'll caution you though, boy. You're young, prone to idealism and visionary causes—don't let that sway your own conviction. This power you hold, well, it was one too great for me. For Albus too—for any human, even. Before you intend to use it, I warn you to think of your responsibilities."

And the great Gellert Grindlewald smiled then, crooked, yellowed teeth an ominous warning. "With great power comes great responsibility—remember that."

Without another word he descended into the gloom of the hallway, and Harry could numbly hear the Aurors rearranging themselves into place as guard around him once more.

Stunned, and more than a little lost, Harry wasn't sure what to think of him, the former Death King.

* * *

><p><em>I'm sure you're all annoyed that L and Light STILL haven't made an appearance yet. I assure you, its coming.. slowly but surely. Of course, reviewing always makes it faster..<em>


	6. Back Against the Wall

_So, yeah... I used my all-powerful authoritative powers to just sort of make Grindlewald have all the hallows... yeah. so that happened. I think by "having" them he just managed to come in contact with them. In my headcanon I imagine him stealing the ring somehow for a short time, before eventually it leaves his possession. The cloak, he just like quickly got to touch etc. _

.

.

He knew even less what to think of L Lawliet.

Grindlewald had conformed into him a sense of cautionary wariness when dealing with the two battling foes, L Lawliet and Light Yagami. He'd started feeling less self-righteous anger at the two of them for being such a pain in the ass, and more anxious confusion as to whether it was truly his place to meritoriously drop kick them both in the face, or at the very least, use the Death Note to make them do that to each other.

Unfortunately it seemed that decaying, crazy ass motherfucker had a few… surprisingly accurate things to say.

_Dammit. _The boy—who was way too young to be dealing with so many self-absorbed, maniacal psychopaths in his life— thought, resigned. _Damn my hereditary heroism._

And, with a brief glance to the incredibly self-absorbed, dark-haired maniacal psychopath to his left; _And damn you too, L Lawliet._

He was supposed to be the good guy! He was supposed to be stopping the _other _sociopath! He certainly wasn't supposed to be one himself!

But what else could possibly describe the guy? Though he believed truly in justice, he had a real underhanded, douchebag way of going about it. Including but not limited too playing cheap, psychological mind games, goading and manipulative behavior, planting a variety of privacy-encroaching machinery without warrants _or _probably cause beyond his own ideals, and the real ass kicker, being a pain in Harry's ass.

To that end, however, even though he wasn't supporting the biggest, arrogant douchebag in the world, he wasn't supporting the biggest _tool, _either, who also went by Light Yagami.

_Both of these guys are fools. _Thought the wizard with splenetic contempt.

Good god, couldn't they see how _similar _they were? How could you hate someone who was practically yourself? (Of course, Harry was quickly realizing he had done the same) Both of them were trying to attempt their own idea of justice—which was already a very subjective, ambiguous idea within itself—and both going about it in the most unlawful way possible. L was a detective who worked for no agency and broke just as many laws as Light. Granted, he didn't go about murdering people using a murdering book, but for a guy who was supposed to support the legal justice system, he certainly didn't go about it _legally._

But perhaps his outstanding opinions could better be described in _how _he ended up in this certain predicament, squashed between the most arrogant egotistical jerks at the To-Oh induction ceremony, rather than what his assessment was after the fact.

.

.

.

"My lord—

"_Don't call me that!" _Roared the brunette, halting his incessant pacing to raise his voice to his cowed servant, before continuing once more.

Justin swallowed, shifting his weight on his skeletal toes. "Mr. Potter." He corrected. "How about some tea, to calm your nerves?"

"How about a Xanax?" Ryuk snorted from his spot lounging on the top of the bookshelf.

Harry ignored them both—though it was a difficult task—in favor of his own thoughts.

How dare he!

Who the hell did Grindlewald think he was, coming literally _out of the ground, _or at the very least, out of the basement of some guarded prison like a pile of uncovered dirty laundry, only to give _him _advice? Like he didn't have enough going on already. Like he even _wanted _advice from the most prolific killer of the Wizarding World.

_Not that Grindlewald ever had the opportunity to deal with Death Gods, either, regardless of how helpful they can be when they weren't gambling away their lives in eternal boredom._

Perhaps the reason he was so angry could be an accumulation of stress, encumbering responsibilities literally blindsiding him out of nowhere, tedious Death God servants, the very fact that he had no idea what in the hell he was doing but everyone in the world—_both _worlds—expected him to be some kind of righteous leader, and that Grindlewald was _right._

The crazy old man that committed mass genocide against muggles simply because he wanted to, _was right._

"At the very least, why don't you lay down?" Justin asked, undeterred by his unbridled fury. Harry felt somewhat bad—it wasn't the skeletons fault he was so pissed off.

"What'd the old guy say to you that's got you so pissed off?" Ryuk wedged a finger into his ear. "Well, you've always been kinda pissy, but today more than usual—hyuk, hyuk, hyuk."

Harry sighed, folding his arms and finally stopping his constant walk around the study perimeter in favor of sagging against his desk. "And you wouldn't be pissy?" He snapped back. "Imagine, for once in your life you can do as you please—no one looking at you for the answers, expecting impossible things from you—and then suddenly not only does the entirety of the free world look at you as their unofficial leader, so does the world of the dead!"

"The free world thing is kinda a bit of a stretch." Ryuk pointed out.

Harry pretended he didn't hear him. "Not only that, but you've got this inherent guilty conscious coupled with a heroic complex which is constantly goading you into conforming what everyone wants from you—never allowing _you _to even understand what you want yourself!"

"Sounds like an identity crisis."

_That's been going on since you were ten. _Harry added cynically.

"I fail to see where Light Yagami falls in this." Justin offered meekly.

Harry frowned, turning to look at the Death God hovering by the door. "Everything in me says that I should just kill him off and the world would be better for it." He explained, simply. "But at the same time, I can see that Grindlewald has a point. That whole 'responsibility' to the world thing coming back to bite me in the ass."

"So you're saying you shouldn't kill him?" Justin tilted his head.

"Of course he shouldn't!" Ryuk cut in. "He'd ruin my entertainment—

"And what's your _entertainment _in comparison to the King's wishes—

"I shouldn't kill him _because I don't know if its my place to even do so," _And, with a dark look to Ryuk, "Not because it would ruin Ryuk's petty 'entertainment'."

"It may be petty." The enormous Death God agreed, "But you said so yourself—it's _entertaining_."

Harry narrowed his eyes at the Shinigami's winsome smirk. At the door, Justin looked like he expected Harry to kill the other Death God off at any second.

But he didn't.

Instead, he took a deep breath. "You said that Detective L Lawliet was currently on the 'Kira' case, right?"

"That's right." Was Ryuk's gleeful reply.

"So he's working on catching him. Do you think he will?"

"That's why it's so amusing!" The Shinigami's entire countenance seemed to change at the very thought, morphing from occupational boredom into what could be considered genuine—if not morbid—interest. "Who knows who'll win."

"We don't have time for that!" Harry straightened, pushing himself off the desktop. "He needs to be stopped _now_! Who knows when this L guy will catch him. How many lives will be lost until then?"

"You're thinking like a pacifist—and like a human." Ryuk cackled. "Think like a Death King! The humans are over populated, anyway. What's a few more?"

"A few more human lives?" Harry shot back.

"Your servants take them away every day, what's the difference?"

"That's for food!"

"Not all the time. Are you going to kill us all too? And anyway, since when did humans need an excuse to kill one another? Even without Death Notes… just think of your Dark Lord—he killed people just as quickly, didn't he?"

"And he needed to be stopped!" Argued the wizard. "And he was!"

"By you." Ryuk agreed. "Another wizard."

Harry gave pause. "So you're saying I should wait it out, then? Let other human's deal with Light? But he's using a Death Note—that's an unfair advantage!"

"Your Lord Voldemort used Death's wand—isn't that the same thing?"

Everything in him wanted to protest, yet the words couldn't form in his mouth. If Voldemort had never attempted to kill him as a baby—never seeded a part of his own soul into Harry's—would there have even been a Chosen One? If the stroke of inopportune misfortune hadn't befallen the Dark Lord at that very moment, if one insignificant woman hadn't plead for her baby's life, could anyone have truly stopped him?

Ryuk took his silence as an answer, laughing loudly. "Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk. It's true, isn't it? Another wizard killed him, _you _killed him, took away another's life—doesn't that _burn _in you? Who were you to decide his fate? To play God?"

"He needed to be stopped!" The wizard protested. "Voldemort was crazy! He was killing hundreds of people left and right, he _couldn't _be allowed to live—

"—And there you are, enacting your own sense of justice, your own _ideals _onto his, and taking his life. So he was crazy, so he killed a lot of people, he was following his justice, just like you were following yours."

Harry had nothing to say to that.

Ryuk unfurled his wings, floating over towards Harry until his beady, yellow eyes reflected the red in Harry's. "That's the flaw in you humans, you always blame each other. You always think, _my _way is right, your way is wrong. You fail to see that there _is no right way._"

Harry pursed his lips. "That can't be true. I can't believe in a world without right and wrong. Killing others, hurting others—that can never be justified."

"But you just justified your own actions!" Cried the Shinigami. "'_He couldn't be allowed to live' _sounds an awful lot like justification, hyuk."

He swallowed, looking away.

The room hushed in a blanket of tense, uncertain silence. Justin still stood at the door, looking like he half-believed Ryuk to be struck dead. Harry didn't even have it in him to think of that. Everything the Shinigami said had a point, and yet at the same time he could see that Ryuk was clearly playing mind games with him in an attempt to stave off the destruction of his own barbaric form of entertainment.

Still, the Shinigami had given him a lot to think about.

And perhaps had even uncovered some of the things about himself that he'd been hiding from the world—and himself.

He thought about the Dark Lord, Tom Riddle, more than he should. Thought about his death at Harry's hands. Thought about right and wrong, and where he stood on that line—if there was even a line at all.

"I'll concede you have a point." The Death King said, at great length. "But I still don't think that letting this whole debacle play out on its own is a good idea, either. The whole thing wouldn't have even happened without outside interference—mainly you, dropping that stupid Death Note right into Light's hands in the first place."

Ryuk didn't even have the good decency to look guilty, only shamelessly holding his leveled gaze with a mischievous smirk.

Harry tilted his chin up, coming to his own conclusion. "I'm going to go down there and see it for myself."

If anything, this only seemed to give Ryuk more amusement.

.

.

.

This was how Harry found himself decked in a tailored designer suit transfigured from a pair of pajamas, conjuring his way through the Administration office of To-Oh University to join the incoming freshmen class. He imagined L had down something of the same—without the magic. And Light, well, Light had gotten in through just being a genius asshole.

He stared himself down in To-Oh's men's bathroom, silently admitting that Ryuk had hit a soft spot in his heroic armor.

The entirety of the Wizarding World at large would agree with him when he said the Dark Lord needed to be stopped, and yet that didn't stop the guilt of taking away his life from eating away at his soul. He'd killed him because he thought that Voldemort was wrong, plain and simple. He could rationalize that the Dark Lord was evil, mentally unbalanced, sociopathic and destroying countless lives and upturning the civil peace that was the Wizarding World, and yet that was all insignificant. The very heart of the matter was that it was hypocritical of him to enact his own sense of justice, and yet get angry at—and even kill—others for doing the same.

He'd had dreams, multiple in fact, of being the Dark Lord. Of looking in the mirror and seeing the flat, slit nose and crimson eyes, or worse even, the suave smirk and charming face of Tom Riddle. Yet he'd never felt so much like him as he did in this moment, staring at his own name written in blood above his head, holding the power that the Dark Lord had dreamed of. The means to act out his own sense of justice against everyone else's.

"I'm getting a fucking headache." The Death King sighed, rubbing at his temples and wondering if it was because he'd walked through a sea of glowing red numbers to get here or because all this deep thought was getting to him. He'd never had to think about this kind of stuff when he was out 'saving the world'. Everything he'd done had been told to him by others, he was the Chosen One, it was his destiny, he had to save them all, yeah whatever. He wasn't about to blame them, either. _He _was the one who'd followed along with that, believed they're sense of right and wrong without question.

The thought didn't make him feel any better.

"My condolences."

Harry jumped, spine growing rigid as his eyes flew open at the sudden intrusion.

And there, zipping up his pants and facing the urinal was Light Yagami.

"…It's just the crowds." Harry said slowly, after regaining his composure.

The genius made his way to the sink, washing his hands and smiling pleasantly at Harry's reflection in the mirror. "I don't like them much either—they make me nervous."

_He lies so effortlessly. _Harry thought, eying the charming young man. It was one thing to hear about him, watching him silently from afar, another to see him up close. Everything about Light seemed sculpted from gold, a faultless perfection from the wayward bronzed bangs to the refined slide of his nose, down to the tips of his curved fingers.

Hell, looking like that, no wonder the guy thought he was God.

"It's like they always want something from me."

And thought the world of himself.

The egotistical ass.

"Maybe you just have a lot to offer." Harry rebuked, turning on the faucet himself, at least in a last ditch effort to look like he hadn't been standing there silently watching the other guy pee the whole time.

Light somehow managed an awkwardly charming self-depreciating look. "You think so? I don't know what could be special about me—

And Harry was really about to lose his temper to that cunning, innocent spiel when the bathroom door swung open, _again, _and out walked L Lawliet from the stall at the far corner.

Harry's mouth fell open and he lost his composure, _again, _as the slouching detective shuffled passed them. It was also one thing to watch the detective from his perch in the Shinigami Realm, another to see him walk passed him in the flesh. He was… taller than Harry expected.

Fortunately for the Death King, Light took his aghast expression as incredulity over the other man's appearance, rather than the fact it was L Lawliet, the guy he'd been after this whole goddamn time, who also looked weirdly a lot like his mother and a sleepless vampire combined.

"You think that guy's here for the ceremony?" Light leaned back to watch the bathroom door swing closed slowly. "He looks like he hasn't changed his clothes in days."

"…I wouldn't know." Harry swallowed. When he thought of the world's greatest detective, he hadn't thought of _that._

And then, shaking his head. "We should probably get going. We'll be late for the opening speech."

"No kidding, huh?" Light chuckled, before offering his freshly washed hand. "I'm Light Yagami by the way."

Harry studied the hand in front of him, mind racing.

"Tom. Tom Riddle."

He looked up then as his hand clasped Light's, and above the human's head, Ryuk's razor teeth grinned wide.

He wasn't sure what possessed him to say that. Even less, striking up a god damn conversation with the most prolific single-handed murderer the muggle world had probably ever seen. It was the first name to strike in his head when he saw Light's face so close to him—the muggle reminding him so much of his old enemy that it was as if Tom Riddle had truly come back from the dead to haunt him. Their similarities were boggling, certainly.

He followed Light into the auditorium dazedly, taking a seat beside him in the front row. Soon thereafter, L followed, sitting bird-like on the chair to Harry's left, no doubt irritated that he'd taken the open spot next to Light.

"So you're a foreigner?" Light asked casually, sneaking a glance past Harry to where L was perched onto the seat to his left. He looked like a large, humanoid bird, wide dark eyes facing forward like the podium in front of them fascinated him greatly. Harry supposed he was listening intently to their conversation. In the background, the Principal droned through the opening ceremonies.

Harry nodded, thankful that while the translation spell allowed him to speak fluent Japanese, it still retained somewhat of an accent. "Yeah… I moved here a year ago with my family."

Light nodded, looking strangely interested. "What made you choose To-Oh?"

Harry faltered. "It seemed like a good school?"

Ryuk continued to float next to Light, staring at him greedily as if he half-expected Harry to go on a murderous rampage and kill everyone in the room. Harry wanted to wipe the smug look off of the Shinigami's face—or better, kick him in the mouth and shut him up.

"Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk… hyuk, hyuk, hyuk…" Ryuk continued to chuckle, and Harry caught the brief, irritated look that crossed Light's features at the sound, bringing a dark, tenebrous look to what had up until now seemed angelic features.

He could tell that all Light wanted to do right now was turn around and tell the Death God to shut the hell up, yet couldn't do so at risk of looking insane.

"Are you alright?" He asked with great relish. "You look a little… peaked."

Light schooled his features back into amiable cheer. "I'm fine! Just a little hot."

Harry nodded. "Oh yes, these stage lights are pretty bright…"

"—And now for our Freshmen Address, and Freshmen Representative, Light Yagami."

Light nodded, standing up. Harry's eyes followed him involuntarily—the guy certainly had that charisma and grace people always looked to in their leaders, regardless of how evil they truly were.

"Likewise, Freshmen Representative, Hideki Ryuuga."

Murmurs split into the crowd.

"_Like the pop singer?"_

"_No way! He's not smart enough to be in To-Oh!"_

The crowd quieted down when L stood, looking dismayed at the bland, disheveled man who belonged to the name. Harry narrowed his eyes. Hideki Ryuuga? Of course he'd go by a fake.

Both Light and L's Freshmen Addresses were terribly bland and long-winded, leaving Harry jittery and volatile with wariness. Of course, he'd decided to unobtrusively keep tabs on them by attending this absurdly studious college in the first place, and by default thrown himself head first into their mind games—but he hadn't expected to so quickly be wedged between them, _literally._

However, the most eventful thing so was L whispering into Light's ear as they exited left off the stage. Something L said seemed to have struck Light pertinently, as the boy faltered in his steps, regaining his countenance smoothly after but a moment, yet his face continued to lose color as he walked back to his seat. Harry strained to hear, but they were too far away.

Luckily for him, Ryuk, who had been shadowing Light the entire time, swooped ahead and perched himself on the top of Light's chair, looking like a faithful lapdog waiting for it's owner, but turning covering his body with his wings to chuckle at Harry.

"L's told him his true identity!" Ryuk cackled.

Harry's eyes widened.

"He wants Light to join the task force, heh, heh. I wonder what Light will do with this opportunity…" He unfurled his wings again, turning to grin unblinkingly at Light as the boy returned to his seat and stiffly sat down.

L sat down gracelessly, wasting no time in peering over Harry to look deeply into Light's eyes, the other boy staring impassively ahead.

"I trust you." The detective whispered.

"If this guy's really L, he's something else." Ryuk snorted, returning to his act as Light's Shinigami. "Are you going to join him, Light?" Ryuk chuckled, giving his wings a few flaps. "What are you going to do? Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk… I like this guy!"

For his part, Harry acted as naturally confused as anyone normally would be, sitting between two people with such an unhealthy amount of tension.

He took a breath, dipped into his Gryffindor courage, and broke it.

"So you two know each other?" He asked decorously, looking between the two.

Light managed a small nod, and something of a smile. "Sort of, yes."

"I'm Hideki Ryuuga." L spoke, as smooth of a liar as Light. "We're acquaintances, yes."

Harry turned to Light, giving a polite, teasing smile. "Won't you introduce me?"

"This is Hideki Ryuuga," Light nodded towards L, swallowing thickly. "He's… a friend of my father's. Ryuuga, this is Tom Riddle. I met him earlier, and as I'm sure you've noticed, he's in our class."

"Yes, quite." L was quick to reply. "A pleasure."

At first glance, L seemed… rather tame. In fact, his mannerisms and inflectionless voice lent him a nonchalant, insouciant façade which would have fooled Harry had he not been following Light around for the past few days. No, this was the genius mastermind behind every camera and microphone invading Light's personal space, every lie and deception made in the effort to get ahead of Kira, and who was crusading against Light Yagami on a five percent chance the boy was, in fact, Kira.

Granted he was right, but the very idea of someone manipulating the legal system so underhandedly to further his own gain irritated him as much as Light's pompous self-righteous glory.

That, and the two were not only lying to each other, but to _him _as well.

Sitting between the two of them, Harry was quickly forming another opinion.

Regardless of his own inner turmoil and Ryuk and Grindelwald's surprisingly pertinent advice, it would certainly make him feel better to kill them both and be done with it.


	7. Shake Me Down

_**THANKS FOR EVERYONE WHO CAUGHT MY MISTAKE :) LOVE YOU ALL**  
><em>

_See I promise this isn't abandoned... just taking forever. I had soooo many ideas for this fic and I was trying to fit them in, and then I decided fuck it, I'll just make a whole other hpxdn crossover for those, and keep this one the way I had intended_

* * *

><p>"—<em>The entire Wizarding World is in uproar over such a controversial decision, and yet no one in the Ministry has yet to deign us with an answer, tell me, Auror Finnish, why hasn't the Ministry released a formal statement on the execution of Gellert Grindlewald scheduled for this afternoon—"<em>

"_You ask me, this whole thing is bullocks. Now how can the Ministry make a call like this without consulting the public?—_

"_Bless my soul, you know, I had three uncles killed in that war, no one seems to think about things like that—_

"_Once again, no comment made by Minister Kinglsey on his decision to condone the death of the first Dark Lord—_

"_And Abus—_

At this, Harry flinched.

"—_What would Albus have said about this?—"_

And abruptly turned the radio off, unable to hear much more of this.

What would he indeed. Harry had more than a few things he'd like to ask his old professor.

He rested a hand to his head, feeling something of a migraine coming on. Not even looking around the familiar sight of his room seemed to help—if anything, it only seemed to put him further on edge. All the things which he should have found comfortable and soothing, the pocket watch from Sirius on his bedside table, the soft diffusion of afternoon light from the windows, ever-fresh flowers from Hermione on bright on the sill against the foggy London sky… they all only stirred within him a vague sense of discord. Like this place wasn't home anymore.

Like he didn't belong anymore.

He fiddled with the radio dial for a few more moments, enjoying the benign silence of his room, the dim sounds of Diagon Alley beneath his window, muted by the glass, seeming a thousand miles away.

There should be something pleasant about returning to his old routine, even if for a moment. Yet all he could feel was unease—instead of thinking on what he wanted for lunch from the café down the street he was anxiously wondering what was going on halfway across the globe, what madness Light Yagami and L Lawliet had gotten themselves into…

He'd promised himself that he'd take a few moments, maybe days, for himself, trying to get back into his old routine. But the more he thought about it, the more he questioned what it _was. _What had he been doing for the past five years since he'd stopped Voldemort and met the Death God Ryuk? Freelancing for the Aurors, dating Ginny, breaking up with Ginny, dating other girls, getting back with Ginny again—

Nothing, it seemed.

It honestly felt like he'd been doing nothing.

Sure, he had a house in Daigon Alley, a lot of unnecessary property given to him so courteously by the Blacks that he couldn't sell off, a lot of press releases and attempts to hide from the limelight that only ever seemed to work for a month or two at best. He had the Weasleys, and Hermione, and all his friends that still lingered around the area after the War, a little jaded from their naïve former selves but altogether roughly the same they'd been in school.

Had he even been living, these past five years?

Or had Harry Potter died that day, in ashes next to the Dark Lord in the ruins of Hogwarts, and the Master of Death had taken his place?

He felt… different.

Dethatched.

He never remembered feeling that way when he was throwing himself head first into danger. During his schooling years, he'd never felt more _alive, _he'd had a purpose then, and it had burned within him with such a fiery heat that there was no way he could ever _not _feel alive. If anything it was too much, a constant threat to overwhelm him, licking at his sanity as he battled against an unimaginable force. But he'd never felt more alive, then. Vivacity rising in his veins, a powerful sense of determination keeping him grounded, resolved. The ambitions and aspirations of an entire population resting squarely on his shoudlers. And he'd hated it, sure. He'd never asked for that responsibility.

But he was there, wholly, one-hundred percent _there._

One hundred percent human.

The day found him idling in front of Lawliet Manor, dispassionately gazing upon its large, iron wrought gates. Behind them, he could see the path lined with rose bushes, their twittering chatter loud in the afternoon air. It was fall now, but the leaves had yet to change and the cloying heat of summer felt damp on the cotton material of his shirt. He debated the merits of going in or going home, and eventually decided that he at least had the dubious honor of informing Mrs. Lawliet of her son's continuing existence.

The gates opened upon his command, with nothing but a slight groan as he tread lightly down the path. The manor loomed before him, washed white in the glistening afternoon sun and spun with ivy tendrils that rounded about its impressive pillars. Before it lay a fountain with shrill and cheery water sprites. He took the stairs two at a time to the front door, and leveled his gaze at the truly magnificent lion knocker, who only met his gaze imperiously.

"The Lady of the house isn't expecting visitors." Said the lion head ominously.

Harry startled at is voice, responding in kind, "She'll be expecting me."

It looked dubious—or as dubious as a metal door knocker could look. "Do you have proof?"

"Proof?" Harry echoed.

"Yes, a letter, a confirmation of the requirement of your presence."

Harry was stunned into silence. He'd never gotten into an argument with a door knocker before, but he seemed well on his way to doing so.

He opened his mouth, but was quickly cut off from a voice by the rose hedges.

"Alfonso, are you heckling my guest?"

The door knocker, Alfonso, managed to look somewhat apologetic. "No my Lady," He said, loftily. "I was simply questioning his reason for visiting."

Chrysanthe Lawliet stepped away from the large hedges of roses, clippers in one hand and a wide sunhat shading her lovely face, bathed in afternoon light until her unnaturally pale skin seemed to glow. House elves jumped out of the bushes, each with their own pair of clippers, to skitter around her feet.

She smiled widely. "Oh, but dear Harry never needs a reason to visit." She chided, handing her scissors to one of the elves and lifting her skirts with one hand to climb the stairs, the other handling a basket full of cut roses.

His manners had him holding a hand out for her, opening the door to allow her in, much to the grumbling of the lion knocker.

"I apologize for Alfonso." She said lightly as they crossed the foyer, her voice echoing softly against the marble. "He's always been rather protective of the grounds."

She placed the flowers at the table centerpiece, weaving her wand to dispel the cluster of hydrangeas from the vase. She plucked a few roses from her basket, beginning to fill the vase once more with a colorful bouquet. House elves popped in and out, handing her roses of all shades, which she arranged artfully. Harry had never understood much about the art of flower arranging, so he stood behind her somewhat unsurely, shifting his weight back and forth.

He swallowed. "Though I must confess, there is an actual reason for my visit."

She paused, delicate hands lingering on the blooming bud of a canary yellow rose, tilting her head behind her to meet his eyes. She blinked suddenly, dropping her hands. "Oh! Yes, forgive my manners." With a clap of her hands, a house elf appeared at her feet. "Sully, could you get the tea room ready?"

The house elf winked out of existence, and the Lady of the house looked at him with a regretful look. "I apologize for the state of the manor—it hasn't seen much use as of late, it must look awfully dreadful."

To be honest, Harry wasn't sure that this house could ever _lose _its splendor. "Really? Hadn't noticed. It's lovely, Mrs. Lawliet."

She waved him off. "Chrysanthe, please. I always feel rather insulted when I'm called Mrs. Lawliet."

"Chrysanthe, then." He nodded, and followed her as she gracefully glided into the other room.

He recalled the open courtyard from before, afternoon sun playing against the smooth lines of marble, glistening against the spraying water fountain. She led him past it, though, through a few ornate and elaborate rooms until they finally reached a small alcove set into the windows of a vast hall. A piano was magically playing through a repertoire of Chopin pieces on the far side of the room, the rest of the hall large and devoid of any furniture, only looming and decorative pillars that broke the flat planes of gleaming marble.

The lady of the house sat herself delicately on one side of the cushioned bench, and Harry slid to sit opposite. He wondered how her hair never seemed to fall out of place when she moved—she'd taken her sunhat off to reveal an elaborate hairstyle, half pinned precariously to curl around her head while the other half fell in soft curls about her shoulders.

"You absolutely must try the firewhiskey biscuits." She implored, taking one for herself. "They're simply divine—haven't any idea how Sully makes them so well."

He bit into one—pleasantly surprised with the layer of chocolate filling. "It's good."

She smiled at him, covering it quickly with the rim of her cup.

It was easy to forget why he'd come here in the first place. Lawliet manor seemed to exist on an entirely separate plane of existence, a half-dream perhaps, untouched by reality, frozen in an eternal splendor that never waned or grew old.

And of course, Mrs. Lawliet herself, the centerpiece in the majestic palace. She was a rousing conversationalist, directing him through foreign affairs and ministry business without ever striking an opinion he dissented with too greatly, but also never returning with a bland response.

He'd almost forgotten entirely what he'd come for.

"I've never been out of the country." She was saying, dabbing delicately at the side of her mouth after she'd finished a scone. "I'd love to travel—maybe to wizarding Switzerland, maybe Moscow. I feel it'd be lovely with all that snow. Or maybe even China, I've heard the countryside is beautiful and exotic there."

"Asia seems relatively the same to me." Harry mused, before adding, "I've only ever been in the city, though. And even then it's been very brief."

"Oh?" She blinked curiously. "Where in Asia have you been?"

"Japan." And then, "Well actually just Tokyo."

"Whatever for?"

Harry suddenly remembered himself, blinking out of his reverie. He set his teacup down. "That's actually what I'd came here to speak to you about." He began, wondering how he'd managed to lose track of the conversation like that. "It's about your son."

Her expression didn't change much-there never an expression too extreme or an emotion too radical with her—but Harry could see how her eyes widened in something like surprise, the way her slight smile seemed to falter.

"Yes? You have news?"

"I've found him." Harry explained. "He's in Japan—in Tokyo. I don't know how long he's been there but he's there now."

She leaned back, turning to study the world outside of the window. "…Tokyo?" She echoed softly, and then, on a seemingly different tangent, "You've met him, then?"

He nodded, reading the true question she was silently imploring him to ask. "Yes. He's… rather eccentric. Also quite famous, in some circles… he's a very well-known detective. World acclaimed, I think." He swallowed. "He looks a lot like you."

Harry wasn't sure whether it was the right thing to say or not, and it was difficult to tell what Chrysanthe was thinking from her watery smile.

"Thank you, Harry." She said at length. "You've truly went above and beyond for me—you have my utmost gratitude. I can find closure at last, knowing that he lives. I wonder what kind of life he must live?" She thought loud, before shaking her head. "I suppose it doesn't matter. As long as he's alive."

Harry blinked. "Don't you want to meet him?"

She peered back at him, luminous dark eyes striking in the afternoon light, reminding him so strongly of L. He looked so much like her, in a strange way that Harry tried not to think too much on.

So much silence crept between them, the moment seemed immortalized here in this not-world, the movement of the trees in the orchard slow and methodical. He lost track of time for a little bit, basking in the warm diffusion of light.

"No." She said, finally. "Perhaps its for the best if I didn't."

He wanted more than anything to question her, curiosity burning and a magnitude of emotions he couldn't quite understand swelling within him as he gazed upon her lovely face, so beautiful and impassive.

But he didn't, and she didn't bring it up again, the conversation pulling away again.

.

.

.

His meeting with L and Light did bring _some _merits to the table.

For one, his aching curiosity had turned quickly into a genuine sort of exasperation—how were these two real, honestly. What was worse was taking classes with both of them.

As a world class detective, L certainly had a lot of time to waste away in these classes, long and tedious and full of information Harry had never heard before. Light seemed to have latched right onto him, though—for what reason, Harry hadn't the slightest idea—L a silently sullen partner, looking put out at Harry's very existence. Most likely because Harry's very existence had ultimately ruined whatever elaborate plot he'd had to out Light as Kira.

Which, personally, Harry was quite curious about as well. How did L expect to solve this case, without knowing anything about the Death Note?

His gaze slid to the apathetic face of the detective beside him—blindsided by the likeness of another face so similar, a profile doused in sunlight, so impassive and cold as well.

Above them all, Ryuk's loud, obnoxious laughter continued. "_Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk…"_

Harry gripped his pencil irately, wishing above all else he could command the Shinigami to shut up. But then he'd have to address him aloud, and then he'd have to obliviate both Light and L _and _everyone else in the room.

Unfortunately he'd never been as good at the obliviate charm as Hermione.

So Ryuk continued, and coupled with the drowning teacher at the front of the room, the patterned _skritch scratch_ of pencils against paper, they could create some kind of classroom symphony. Well, likening this to any kind of music was truly a heinous and offensive crime against it.

"You're not taking any notes, Tom?" Light turned to him, jolting him out of his thoughts.

Harry almost didn't respond, swallowing against the lump in his throat that came with that name. _Why _did he ever have to say that name…

"I, uh, don't think I'll need them." Harry smiled back, sheepishly.

"Really? You must be really smart." Light's face schooled into something like surprise and awe. There was something condescending to the knit of his brows, though. Like he actually thought the opposite. Harry wouldn't put it past him.

Harry shrugged. "I… studied a lot of Law back in England." Was all he said in his defense. Undoubtedly though, he didn't understand a _wink _of this Law and Justice class. But there was little point in even attempting it, though. He'd just confound the professor after class.

"England, huh?" Light leaned over, and there was something pinning about his gaze. "I thought there was something about your accent…"

"Yes, London." Harry answered.

"Well there's this great café I know just down the street." Light was saying, smiling down at Harry with that glorious, beatific smile. "Would you want to try it out? I want to know your opinion on the tea there… what with you being a Brit and all."

Or perhaps he simply wanted to get away from L without it being too obvious. And how else aside from Harry?

Even worse, who was he to say no?

"Sure, why not." Harry smiled back, blandly.

Light was as charming as Harry had expected him to be, sweet and caring and seemingly incredibly passionate about the law. Harry might have even fell for it, just a bit, had the constant, looming shadow of Ryuk not caught his eye every few seconds. This boy was a killer. Harry couldn't forget that.

"She's really into it… I don't get it at all. It seems like a silly sitcom to me—none of the cases seem even remotely real." Light was saying as he rounded the corner. Harry had been too preoccupied with his own thoughts, though.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I was talking about this British show my sister watches called Sherlock. You ever heard of it?"

"Oh?" Harry asked absent-mindedly. Above them, Ryuk was guffawing and laughing and pointing at something in the distance. He kept sweeping in front of them, making faces at Harry. Light had no reaction to it—but Harry was having trouble holding himself from landing a left hook right on Ryuk's jaw. "No, sorry. I didn't watch much telly."

"_Light, Light, Light…" _Ryuk crowed, but his large, gleaming yellow eyes were looking at Harry, never wavering from him, burning and unnerving. _"How many apples would you give me to tell you this?"_

Harry narrowed his eyes quickly at the Shinigami, wondering what he was up to. He turned back to Light. "I was a big football fan though. You watch any football?" He changed the subject tactfully, knowing fully well the answer was probably no.

"Not too much, no. I was never into sports—a little _too _studious, I guess. I played tennis in high school, I was the regional champion. Do you play?"

"Oh, no. Never played tennis. I've always wanted to try, though."

"_Do you see them, Light?" _Ryuk floated ahead in front of them, and then, unfurling his wings like giant pillars erupting from his back, "_All those cars following you?"_

With that he took off, flying off behind them. Harry pulled his phone out of his pocket, looking down and catching a glimpse of where Ryuk went in the reflection. He was circling a nondescript car some ways behind them. He pretended to check his messages, eying the profile of Light's face as he did so. It was minute, but there was a clench to his jaw, a wrathful look on his face like he wanted nothing more than to interrogate Ryuk now but knew he couldn't do so.

They turned the corner, and the smile was fixated once more onto Light's face. "Oh look, we're here." He beckoned Harry along, and it was as if nothing was amiss.

The duration of their visit consisted of stinted dialogue, awkwardly perfunctory—like two people who clearly loathed each other yet refrained from saying it aloud. Or perhaps just two people who didn't know each other well enough. Harry refused to speak much of himself on principal, and didn't actually know enough about the legal system to hold a conversation with Light about it, so they were left with the most mundane of topics to choose from.

They were somewhere in the weather of the northern European hemisphere when a rather plain old Caucasian man entered the restaurant, a briefcase, somewhat rumpled suit and glasses only completing the ensemble. Harry wouldn't have thought much of him had Ryuk not begin to chuckle rudely.

"_He's here to spy on you, Light-kun." _ The Shinigami took great pleasure in announcing. Harry gritted his teeth. Regardless of whom he was addressing, Ryuk always looked directly at him.

Like a challenge.

Light schooled his expression masterfully—as if he didn't hear Ryuk at all. It was incredibly unfortunate that Light was the only human who's lifespan Harry couldn't see. The numbers were constant and unnerving, but he'd think he'd rather deal with them than Light's mind games.

He knew he was here as a means to some kind of end; but how? What piece was Light attempting to fit Harry into? How was he going to be manipulated into whatever complicated game he and L had going on?

A part of him wanted to simply walk outside, open his wings and fly back to the Shinigami world, pretending he'd never met either of them, or maybe just offing them both off with a couple pen strokes. But it had been his idea to initiate himself into their lives and attempt to sort it out the human way, so there really wasn't anyone else he could blame but himself.

He frowned.

_But how would he do it?_

Harry wasn't going to kid himself; he wasn't anywhere near as equipped for these mind games as Light and L were. They were master planners, cunning and manipulative… more Slytherin than Malfoy, hell, more Slytherin than _Slytherin._ Alternatively, while Harry was quick and clever, he'd never been much for anything other than straight-forwardness. He appreciated that blunt honesty in others, even though he could see how the deception and subtlety could work in situations.

He knew about the Death Note, obviously, he knew how and why Light was killing people. The problem was stopping it without revealing that he did.

He worried his lip in the lull in conversation, Light suddenly going quiet with the presence of the old man two tables down from them, spreading out his newspaper and casually drinking his coffee.

He wondered how Light would choose to handle the situation. Continue onwards with their outing? Of course, for a keen ear it was obvious to tell the two of them weren't friends—though Light was a charming and tactful conversationalist, even he couldn't do much when Harry refused to say much of anything beyond what was perfunctory.

Maybe Light would attempt an artful escape? He'd have to be quite clever about it, or he'd tip the spy off that he knew what he was.

But what Harry wasn't prepared for was for Light to slide his hand to Harry's, flipping his palm up.

He reeled back, reflexively tugging his hand away, but Light's grip held fast.

"My mother used to say you could read peoples fate in their palms." He commented idly, looking down into the lines of Harry's palm as if it held some sort of deeper meaning.

Harry flushed, perplexed and bewildered. Light's hand felt burning hot against his. "Isn't that called palm reading?"

"Palm reading's a con used to extract money from foolish bystanders." Light corrected. His thumb ran smooth, sweeping arches from Harry's forefinger to his thumb, feather-light and ticklish, sending shivers down the length of his arm. "This was different. It was an astrology of sorts."

He felt stiff and tense. "Are you going to tell me my fate?"

Light looked up then; for a moment his eyes flashed with that predatory look, before it was replaced with an even more unnerving… _tender _look. "There's no fun in that." Was all he replied with.

Fortunately, he dropped Harry's palm. Harry wasn't sure what to do with it now.

He picked up his tea cup, sipping it gracefully. His eyes didn't leave Harry's. "You're a very interesting character, Mr. Riddle… there's something about you…"

Harry felt his hackles raise. "Thanks, I guess."

"Are you doing anything tomorrow?" And then, with a slight chuckle, "Well, aside from classes."

"… I don't think so?" Harry replied, cautiously.

"Let's get lunch together." Light smiled charmingly at him. "Have you ever had Thai?"

He shook his head.

"Well, there's a first for everything, right?" He chuckled. "I'll meet you outside of the quad at twelve, how does that sound?"

Harry was so taken aback he couldn't think of a polite way to turn Light down without vaguely insulting him. "Sounds fine."

It wasn't until after he'd left the café with a hasty excuse that he needed to call home, timezone things and stuff, that he realized what had happened. Had Light just _picked him up_? Were they flirting right now? Granted, it had been incredibly one-sided but _had Light just flirted at him_? He was so bewildered he almost thought it was funny—then he felt a little bit sick. Light was a serial killer, he was Voldemort—he was the _real _Tom Riddle. He was charming and beguiling and had that glorious face, but deep down there was the makings of a cold-blooded killer. No, there _was _a cold-blooded killer already, appearing in his dark glances and predatory smiles.

He was still making gagging noises as he returned back to the Shinigami realm, immediately met with Ryuk's amused, wretched grin, sharp teeth blinding in the gloom of the lopsided castle.

"How was your date, my King?"

Harry gave him a scathing look. "Not made any better by you."

"You didn't like my theatrics?" Ryuk chortled. "But Light is so funny when you get him riled up, don't you think? Did you see his face—he looked ready to choke me!"

"I'm surprised he didn't, honestly." Harry frowned. "I was tempted to do the same."

Ryuk laughed, spreading his wings wide as he perched at the top of the dilapidated staircase railing, sending clouts of dust everywhere like billowing mist. "Here's the thing between you and Light, though," He said secretively, "You could kill me whenever. But Light, Light _needs _me. He can't do anything against me. Isn't that so fun?"

"For you, I guess." Harry grumbled in reply, walking past him, scratching the place between his shoulder blades where his wings sprouted. He tried not to think about them as much as possible—a physical symbolization of his inhumanness. Forever embedded between his shoulders.

Times like this he wished he was Hermione. She'd have figured these two boys out in a week—or at the very least if she didn't, she'd have found a book on how to do it.

He made his way to the office, which was in surprisingly good condition, considering he'd been having Justin do his paperwork while he was gone. He'd told the Shinigami to put aside all the cases related to Light Yagami—and there were _a lot. _Merlin, when did the guy find the time?

Harry sighed, settling himself down and beginning to look through them all.

.

.

.

"That's it?" L affirmed, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

"Yes." Was the garbled reply from the 'W' on the screen. "They appeared to be having a… normal cup of coffee. Nothing out of the ordinary was done. Except…"

"Yes, Watari?" L snapped, perhaps more irately than necessary. Then again, he was more irate than usual.

To compensate, he dropped two more sugar cubes into his coffee, peering owlishly into the blinding screen of his computer.

"He seemed… rather intimate with Mr. Riddle?"

At this, L blinked. "Oh?"

"He held his hand. They seemed to be involved in some kind of serious conversation—it was too low to pick up. Mr. Riddle was flushing. Light asked him for lunch tomorrow as well. He said yes."

L stirred his coffee idly. Well, this was an interesting event that he hadn't thought of. Then again, he hadn't put Tom into his calculations at all. He'd assumed that he would be the primary source of fascination to Light in such a dull and droll place as To-Oh University. There was no one there anywhere near on their academic level, which would ideally separate them from the others… isolating him and Light effectively. Coupled with the fact that, if Light was Kira, he would undoubtedly want to become part of the investigation, would ultimately work in his favor in bringing Light closer to him.

But Tom…

Tom certainly wasn't a genius, like them, but he was surprisingly witty and, worse, incredibly charming. Not like Light, no, in a subtle, but certainly more _genuine _way. He was clearly oblivious to it as well.

Light wasn't.

And now Light's attentions weren't just focused solely on L. He hadn't counted on Light making any other friends—nothing about Light spoke of social interactions simply for the sake of them. And yet here he was, clearly fixated on the boy. Perhaps it was a ploy to throw L off his tail? But then, why not just choose a girl? It'd certainly be easier, more socially acceptable… choosing a boy lent a certain honesty to the situation. Made Light vulnerable in a way that L didn't think he would do if this was simply an elaborate ploy.

But this only proved even more difficult. He'd have to somehow… work _around _Tom Riddle. But how?

He couldn't pretend to have affections for the boy as well. Firstly, he'd be terrible at pretending to be in any kind of relationship, and secondly, Light wouldn't take kindly to that. His initial idea had been to befriend Light, either to lull him into a false sense of security, or if he was too smart for that, use the ploy of friendship to test him.

Well, he supposed to himself, there wasn't any reason he could do that to _both _of them, right?

.

.

.

If he'd ever had an eight a.m. class at Hogwarts, he couldn't recall it. And for that, he was grateful, for they were truly a curse upon society and an event which he would never befall onto even his most horrid adversaries. Well, perhaps to Voldemort. But considering the late Tom Riddle's obsession with knowledge he probably took eight a.m.'s _voluntarily. _

Harry shuddered at the thought.

Criminology 101 found him peering blearily from sleepy eyes, the projector in front of him one blurry mass. He'd gotten there a bit early, taking a far spot in the corner where hopefully he'd go by unnoticed.

His plans were foiled when the slumped figure of L slouched over to where he was, seating himself in the chair directly next to him.

Harry prayed for a moment he wouldn't say anything. He wanted to help L, sure, in regards to the fact he was also attempting to stop Light. Enemy of my enemy, and all that.

But that certainly didn't mean he wanted to _talk _to him.

"Couldn't sleep?" The other boy turned to him, _looking _at him with those wide, dark eyes, something about them just as unnerving as Ryuk's demon ones.

He rubbed a palm on his eyes, if only for an excuse not to look at him. "Yeah, sort of. And I'm not used to waking up this early."

"It is quite early, isn't it?" L pondered, tapping his chin. "I wouldn't know, however. I rarely sleep during the week."

Well that would explain the dark circles under his eyes.

He was saved from having to carry the conversation further when Light walked up from behind them.

"Wow, you guys are here early!" He greeted cheerily, pulling the seat on the other side of Harry, and sitting himself unnecessarily close to him.

He tried to think of an unobtrusive way to scoot away from him.

"…I couldn't sleep." He smiled sheepishly, hoping to look like a typical freshmen. "I was too nervous."

"Me too." Light agreed, lowering his voice. "I was too excited."

The class was filled at this point, and their professor coughed loudly to be heard over the din of murmuring voices. The material of Criminology 101 was exactly what he had expected it to be—a lot of stuff he didn't understand, making for a relatively boring morning. What he couldn't have predicted was Light steadily moving closer to him, until he was so close their elbows bumped whenever they wrote.

He'd catch him looking at him from the corner of his eye, whenever Harry turning to meet his gaze he only held his eyes, smiling softly. Harry didn't smile back, but if anything it only made Light try harder.

The guy really wasn't used to losing.

He'd make comments, too. Little jokes that Harry would smile at, if only because it was a benign response.

On his other side, L was a wall of silence.

An hour of this strange one-sided flirting and the class was let out, Light once again extracting a promise of lunch from Harry before taking off for his next class. Above him, Ryuk laughed and laughed and laughed. Harry assumed most of it was at him.

Harry ducked out of the classroom and into the hallway swiftly, hoping to find a quick exit out of the university, if only for a few hours until lunch.

L followed him out, though, and seemed intent to silently walk a step behind him for the duration of the hall.

He finally spoke as they reached the end.

"You and Yagami-kun seem to be good friends."

Harry was struck oddly by the question, aware enough to know something was off about the way L was looking at him, but unsure of what it meant. He stopped and turned to face L fully.

"I suppose?" He hedged. "We see each other often enough. He's in a lot of my classes."

"Acquaintances, then?" L soldiered on, his dark eyes peering up at him.

"Sure, yeah." The brunette nodded. "Nice enough bloke."

"Bloke…" L repeated softly—nothing about the way he said the word was Japanese though. There was a tinge of the accent there, a true native, then. "Yes that's right, you're from Britain, aren't you?"

Harry grinned at him. "You are too, I see."

"I am. I'm an orphan."

At this, Harry blinked. "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that." What was he to say to something like that? Also, who said that so abruptly in polite conversation? Either L had some sort of plot in mind or he really was just that socially inept.

"I don't have a lot of friends." L began anew, looking at Harry with what could only be considered a grieved expression. Coupled with the baggy clothes and slouched posture, it truly made for a sympathetic picture. Of course, Harry knew enough about L to know it was some sort of ploy.

"I'd consider us friends, Ryuuga-san." He smiled then, warmly. He was being somewhat genuine about it, too. L was an alright guy… when he wasn't breaking the law he so ferociously protected for his own gain, and not being a downright asshole.

There was something curious to L's face then—had he found what he was looking for?

"Why do you study law, Riddle-kun?" L abruptly changed the subject. Harry almost made a face at the name.

"What do you mean?"

"There must have been some reason you chose to study Criminology over everything else. Why?"

"I… believe in justice, I guess." Harry supposed aloud. He'd always thought he'd had a pretty serious conviction of right and wrong, a morality he'd always prided himself, that had been called into question more times than he'd like since he became the Death King. "There's so much corruption in this world. It may be innate in human nature, but I don't believe it's right. Someone has to stop it."

L hummed. "Revenge, then?"

"No!" Harry protested vehemently, before recalling his life. Why had he killed Voldemort—revenge? Maybe a little bit. The guy had fucked up a lot of things in his life. Pressure? Because everyone was looking to him like it was his fate? The prophecy? What made it right for him to kill Voldemort—why him over anyone else? Why anyone at all?

Dammit, his thoughts were circling again.

He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "No one's above the law." Is what he ended up with. _(Except him) _"No one _should _be above the law." He swallowed. "There's no such thing as judgment. You don't just get to choose who you can exact judgment on and who you can't—who gets to decide things like that?"

"That sounds the exact opposite of the law."

Harry let out a frustrated noise. "That's not what I meant… I just mean, if you're in a position where you can exact justice onto others… that's a big responsibility. You have to be held to a higher standard—that's why I can't stand corrupt politicians. When you're deciding for more than just yourself, you have to acknowledge that and make the best decisions for _them, _not you."

He closed his mouth abruptly, realizing just _who _he was talking to. Probably the last person he should be ranting to about people in power doing underhanded things. What was even worse—everything he said reminded him vaguely of what Ryuk had said to him… what Grindlewald had said… what _Dumbledore _had said.

_For the greater good…_

Even now, those words burned in his heart like a brand, searing the flesh there and causing anger to stir in the pit of his stomach. Anger and guilt.

Because wasn't that what he had done? Offed Voldemort for the greater good?

"I should really get to class." He said, standing up and beginning to pack up his things.

"You don't have class right now." L said, matter-of-factly, like the idea of him knowing Harry's schedule wasn't completely weird.

Harry didn't bother to reply though, swinging his bag over his shoulder and hastily shuffling off.

L watched him go, debating on the outcome of their encounter. It was… somewhat favorable for him. Clearly he'd have to try a little harder to be nicer to the boy, or at least a little more tactful. He'd never needed to win someone over, didn't have the practice of making people your friends to gain the advantage over them, and wasn't good at it.

He'd never actually had a friend before—an equal.

He shook his head.

No, that wasn't right.

Tom wasn't an equal. He was… a part of the game. A piece in the elaborate chess game he and Light had spun, a wrench thrown in but nonetheless a tool to be used against each other. He was a pawn. The only question L still had unanswered was _whose _pawn he would be.

Of course, neither L nor Light could realize that Harry wasn't the pawn at all.

He was the King.


	8. Come A Little Closer

_Uh, very sorry for any grammatical errors-its hot off the press!_

* * *

><p>In some ways, Harry thought L unnerved him more than <em>Light <em>did. He'd been thinking on the Dark Lord quite often these days—which was a great misfortune onto itself—pondering all he knew about the imminent circumstances of Tom Riddle's life that almost seemed preordained since beyond his birth. Harry, however grudgingly, admitted that most of it wasn't _actually _the Dark Lord's fault. He'd never asked his mother to feed his father involuntary love potions—nor did he, subsequently, wish for her immediate death upon his birth. He most certainly didn't ask for the orphanage, nor for his caretakers, or his aggressive fellow orphans. Granted, Harry wouldn't doubt that intrinsically he was born with a lot of what made him what he ended up being. It was debatable how much of what came where, but the end result, as all wizards old enough to speak know, was the greatest and most feared Dark Lord in history.

And Light Yagami…

Light Yagami had the exact same makings.

Harry barked out a laugh. Did that make him Dumbledore? His laughter quickly subsided as his stomach turned at the thought. Warily, he eyed the toilet behind him.

The sickness subsided in a moment, leaving him with a disconcerted emptiness which lingered like a coiled serpent in his stomach. The wan spill of light in the bathroom made him look more tired than usual. Older, even. Perhaps he really was Dumbledore. The more important part of the analogy lay in the fact that Light was quickly becoming Voldemort.

Not for the first time Harry wished he could simply off the boy now—it'd only take a pen stroke or two, nothing entirely extravagant, no bright crack of green light, no intent at all—but quickly reminded himself of all the reasons not to.

_This wasn't his battle._

_It wasn't his place._

But, perhaps most importantly, _no justice would be served. _

He'd have to be tried, Harry thought, grimly. He'd have to sit in front of a trial. He'd have to be judged by his own kind—humans—in the most fair and just manner Harry knew: the court system. Light Yagami would have to go through what Voldemort should have gone through—what Harry should have _made _him go through. A hearing for his crimes, in front of all of the Wizarding World—for all of the Wizarding World to vote on. Harry doubted they would have asked for a different outcome but the fact remained that it shouldn't have been his decision to make alone, prophecy be damned. There could have been worse torture for him than a quick death.

Harry blinked, disheveling his glasses as he rubbed at his eyes and looked upon his reflection blearily.

Ah, here he was, once more contemplating on his most feared nemesis. It seemed that even in death the Dark Lord would forever haunt him, be it in flesh or in memory.

But Harry couldn't _help _thinking of him. Not when his would-be successor was waiting for him out in the quad.

The young Death King took a deep breath, readjusting his glasses and attempting to maneuver his hair into something manageable. It didn't work.

_A date with the devil, _he thought, with a morbid thrill of hysteria.

How fitting.

.

.

.

Light tapped his foot irately onto the pavement; a nonsensical, almost involuntary movement that, once he noticed, he quickly put an end to. It wouldn't do for the future king of humanity to have such a foolish, _plebian _tick. He checked his watch, looked up, and then checked it again.

Five minutes.

In the grand scheme of things, five minutes looked rather irrelevant. It wasn't late; not quite. And yet.

And _yet._

Light had never been stood up before. Ever since boyhood he'd had a face carved of marble, as if Donatello himself had caressed every curve and swoop into his very skin. He had a mind touched by Da Vinci, and a smile so deceiving, so very curious, that not even the master's own hand could ever hope to capture it. The makings of a king: he'd always thought so. Born into a banal, contemporary family in a banal, contemporary home. But he would make something of himself. He always knew it. As did everyone else who'd ever had the fortune of meeting him—they too, had known he was marked for greatness, lapping at his heels for a lick of attention.

Everyone, it seemed, but Tom.

Light scowled, checked his watch again.

Ten minutes.

"_Uh-oh,_" Ryuk chortled, hanging upside down in a nearby tree. _"Light, I think you might have been stood up."_

"Nonsense." Light hissed, quietly, darting a cautious look around the quad, in case anyone was in ear shot. It was mostly deserted. Still, there was no need to draw undue attention to himself. "He's simply running late. He's probably held up in a class."

"I thought you said he didn't have any classes right now?" Ryuk grinned winsomely.

If possible, Light scowled further.

"That's creepy, by the way." Ryuk added, swinging himself back and forth. "You memorizing his schedule."

"Of course it's not." Light scoffed. And at any rate, he had to. It wasn't as if L would let a detail like that go unnoticed—and the last thing he wanted to do was give L _any _kind of upperhand when it came to Tom. _Light _had made the first move, _Light _had gained the upperhand, and he downright refused to allow L any sort of leeway to usurp him.

L was foolish if he thought Light hadn't discovered his game. Between the two of them there wasn't a soul who came close to their intellectual prowess—they were leagues ahead of anyone in this school, and L knew it. He must have picked his attendance here carefully, Light surmised. He must have known that inserting himself into a school like this would force Light to interact with him. Force Light to _acknowledge _him. To spring Light into his mind games, and drag him into L's territory.

And to do so would be folly indeed.

With the unforeseen advent of Tom, Light had an out. So perhaps Tom wasn't particularly intelligent, nor attractive, yet there was something striking to his countenance—but nothing overwhelming, nothing grand, nothing that L would assume would grab Light's attention. L would see him dating a supermodel, or a movie star—something that would fit Light's persona, fit _Kira's _persona. And Tom was… the exact opposite of that. Just noteworthy enough to be remarked upon with some prominent significance, but still dispossessed of any legitimate, outstanding qualities. He was the perfect person to blindside L. Have him question Light's intentions for a while, debate how genuine Light's attraction may be. With Tom in the picture, Light had a reason to maneuver his way out of L—after all, what could the smartest, most capable detective in the world say to a bit of romance? What possible ulterior motive could L find in the sanctity of love?

Yes, Tom was perfect indeed. He'd be Light's to manipulate, to use to lead L off his trail.

Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on _Tom's _opinion on the matter.

_But how could he not want Light? _The question itself was unfathomable. On the surface, Light was everything that anyone could hope for: attractive, intelligent, witty and insightful, Light was often told one of his best features was his charm and delightful sense of humor. The fact of the matter remained, however artificial most of these qualities may stand to be, that they were exactly the kinds of things everyone looked for in relationships. In fact, they were _all _the kinds of things.

Again, everyone may not be synonymous with _Tom._

"_Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk…_" Ryuk continued to laugh, taking to the sky with one great, swoop of his wings, his raucous, grating voice carried into the skies.

"Sorry I'm late," Came a cheery voice from behind him.

Tom Riddle picked a few stray leaves out of his hair, looking for all the world like he'd stumbled out of some girl's shoujo manga; the cherry blossoms danced behind him and sparkles of petals fluttered to the ground in their wake, coating Tom—and the world around him—in an ephemeral glow.

"I had this _awful _run in with the coffee machine in the student lounge—you wouldn't believe the stuff that's actually in that thing! It must be some kind of safety hazard…"

Light could secretly admit that there was something… rather charming about the other boy. It was his naivety, Light decided upon. The innocuous little smile that played with his lips and the bright, honest crinkle in his eye. However crucial to his machinations this young, guileless boy may be, Light knew he wouldn't have much issue with this particular façade.

"Well, for your sake I'm glad it didn't." He responded with a blinding smile of his own.

Tom blinked at it, looking almost caught off guard. His hair tousled about him wildly in the wind.

Light could have sworn there was more color to his cheeks than usual.

"Yes, right." Tom agreed, hastily, shaking his head. "It would be most unfortunate, wouldn't it? Death by coffee machine."

"Most unfortunate." Light nodded, placing an almost harmless hand on the small of Tom's back, leading him out of the quad. He'd intentionally picked a restaurant not far enough from campus to be noteworthy, but with enough distance to give him time to pick out any of L's minions in the crowd. "Unfortunate, but rather original, don't you think?"

Tom chuckled weakly, stiff beneath Light's hand. Around them, campus thinned as they turned the corner onto a more secluded road.

"If that's a way of looking at death, than I suppose so, yes." Tom admitted, sounding somewhat reluctant to even admit that at all.

"Come now," Light continued merrily, pleased with this turn in conversation. "Surely you don't see the bit of humor in it?"

"Perhaps." Tom answered flatly. His gaze was fixated far into the distance. "I don't find much about death humorous."

"Well yes, there really isn't all that much humor to find in the subject." Light steered them down the street with a firm, guiding hand, surreptitiously watching for followers. With Ryuk flying off like that, he wouldn't have the Shinigami's whimsy to protect him. He eyed the reflection of the street in a nearby store window; mostly deserted. Perfect. He'd be able to pick out any of L's associates easily. "It's not much of a nice subject at all, this is true. Of course, it's a necessary fact of life. Unfortunate, but necessary."

"Not always."

A hard look crossed Light's eye. He glanced at Tom, and noted that whatever complacent expression had donned his face earlier had long since drifted off, revealing an austere, almost aged look to his face. Still, Light narrowed his eyes. He hadn't expected such difficulty.

"You don't believe in death as a necessity? Even for society as a whole to continue to function?"

"I don't believe in killing." Tom refuted, shaking his head. They paused at a crosswalk.

Light frowned. "Not even for a cause?"

Tom didn't respond. The lights changed signals, and they crossed the street with a brisk pace. And then finally, softly, yet with so much visceral heat beneath its surface, "No. My parents were killed for a cause—a foolish and stupid cause indeed."

Light visibly drew back. "Oh…" His mind whirled, attempting to keep hold of the conversation. "I'm so sorry to hear that. I didn't mean to imply—

"No." Tom cut him off, voice still just above a whisper. "You did."

Light stopped, stricken, unsure of how the topic had ran away from him so effectively, when normally he was a master at the reigns of conversation.

Tom seemed to visibly collect himself, shaking his head and spreading a wan smile onto his face. "Alas, I believe we've gone into quite unbecoming subjects; perhaps it's best to simply let them be. Also, might this be the restaurant you were referring to?"

Light looked up, finally noticing his surroundings. "Yes, yes this is." He blinked, wondering how they came to stop here, and inwardly shook himself out of his stupor. It wouldn't do to let Tom throw him off his game. Not with L undoubtedly near. "Excellent eye, Tom. How did you guess this was the one?"

He stepped into the restaurant, greeted immediately with the spicy smell of Thai herbs and the sweet waft of coconut milk.

"Well," Tom replied with dark bemusement as he followed after him, "It does say Thai on the front."

.

L eyed the establishment warily. It was exactly the kind of dive students would flock to, dingy on the inside, composed predominantly of trashy college students skipping class, intent on a cheap meal. The small, cramped space sizzled with smoke from the grill, a waft of aromatic spices blanketing the entire room in one, fell swoop. None of his agent would fit into a hole in the wall like this—not with everyone dressed in trendy attire, loud and youthful. L doubted if even he could pass in a place like this, young as he was.

No, L glowered, vaguely annoyed, Light had won this round.

Or so he thought.

L pivoted on his foot, trudging back along the sidewalk and dangling his phone to his ear. "Watari," He greeted with little fanfare as the dial tone ended. "I need surveillance on 132 Takawa street. And a feed into the cameras inside."

"Yes…" And then, after a few moments and an indistinct noise. "Ah… they seem to be… lacking, in cameras."

"Of course they are." L muttered. Played by Light Yagami once again. Or was he even doing any of this unintentionally? It was difficult to tell. On the one hand, he really could be _that _kind of cheap college student. On the other, he might have been keenly aware that a place like this wouldn't have that kind of surveillance.

"How about CCTV?" L returned.

"It's possible." Watari allowed. "However, you'd have to check personally, and connect into the feed manually."

"Manually it is, then." L sighed. "Thank you, Watari. Have Wedy come by to connect into the cameras."

"Of course."

Fifteen minutes and fifteen hundred yen lost in bribery, L was seated in the dank storage closet at the back of the store, Wedy by his side. He'd managed to squeak out access to the restaurant's cameras through sheer virtue of determination. That, and his fluency in Thai. Either way he'd managed it and Wedy had set up recording for him to personally peruse at a later date in more detail. For now, however, they'd gotten the employees to face the camera toward Light and Tom's table without too much fanfare, and though the quality was poor at best, undecipherable at worst, it could be worse. He could've had to somehow find a way to inconspicuously blend into the crowd.

"So, L," Wedy kicked her feet up, tipping her chair back. "Is there a reason you're totally third wheeling on this date?"

L sighed inwardly. "It's not third wheeling." He'd forgotten about Wedy's unfortunate tendency… for conversation.

"Oh?" She tilted her head toward the side. "Then… what would you like to call hiding in this closet spying on them? Are you trying to bang one of them? Is that what this is?"

"Please stop being intentionally obtuse." He remarked, without looking away from the screen—though currently, not much was happening. He thought he could make out Tom fiddling with the saltshaker, but that was debatable. And Light was, of course, turned away from the camera. It seemed his luck wasn't running out any time soon. L refused to believe Light had so soundly outsmarted him on this—it absolutely must be luck. "You know this is for a case."

"Which case?" Wedy continued, questioning.

"You also know I can't answer that."

She blew a raspberry, tipping back even further until the back of her chair hit the wall. "How long will this be?"

"Depends." He attempted to turn his attention back towards the camera.

A small, almost inexpressive smile lingered upon Tom's face—strained and creasing around his eyes. L squinted, peering further into the screen. Or wait, was that a frown? It was so difficult to tell.

One of Light's hands lay weirdly close to Tom's, stationary on the table. Was he attempting to hold his hand? Had Tom backed away? He wanted to curse this foolish restaurant for such useless security measures. How were they supposed to see anything with such poor quality cameras? To the untrained eye, these two were truly just two men casually hanging out—the romantic matter was, mostly, debatable. Was he doing that purposefully?

Not for the first time since Tom had unintentionally sat himself smack in the middle of L's machinations, he cursed the boy's existence.

If Tom had simply not existed—he wouldn't be second-guessing himself so thoroughly. He'd had Light figured out, for the most part. Kira had been complacent in his arrogance, he'd been _predictable. _He cared for no other aside from himself and remained oriented towards his goal, using others as pawns in his schemes. And was Tom just another ploy in his scheme? Was he something more? How was L to know? He'd profiled Light as a narcissistic psychopath, who wouldn't have the ability to truly love in any legitimate regard. This would make whatever relationship he was pursuing with Tom, be it a platonic friendship or romantic affair, a fraud, a front to lead L off his trail. But his trail of what? Or maybe it was a legitimate relationship, maybe he really did see something in Tom. Was he still a psychopath, then, incapable of love?

L scowled.

No, he didn't like second guessing himself at all.

_And I'd never have had to, _He glowered, thoughtfully, _if that foolish boy hadn't so foolishly sat between us._

L tried to remind himself that Tom was an innocent in this; he hadn't _intentionally _meant to upend all of L's careful machinations. Tom was just a civilian caught in the crosshairs of two warring sides. The boy on the screen, as if sensing his thoughts, smiled brightly. The quick flash made L blink; almost as if the occurrence had happened specifically to remind L that Tom had nothing to do with either he nor Light. He was just an unfortunate soul put in the middle.

It wasn't right to hate him, no matter how difficult he'd made L's current circumstance.

"I've seen _one _of them before." Wedy leaned forward abruptly, squinting into the screen, just as Light turned into profile, speaking quickly to the waitress. "That one. With the smile. Who's he again?"

"That's really of no concern." L bit out. He liked to have his associates as ignorant to his cases as possible—if only for their safety.

Wedy pouted.

"And the other one?" She pointed to Tom, who was shaking his head at something.

"Also none of your concern." He reminded.

If possible, she pouted further. "No fair at all." She scoffed, crossing her arms and leaning back. "Well, I hope neither of them are wanted felons. They're both very cute."

Felons. Hah. Try psychopathic mass murderer. Felon was putting it mildly.

.

Harry had to visibly shake himself out of his reverie. Every few moments an indistinct image of Tom Riddle Jr. would slowly fade over the countenance of Light's face, creating a warped perception of both the Dark Lord and the mass murderer Kira, reminding Harry of a dim, dreary opening of stone, and the slide of scales against wet rock—the spill or orange hair in murky water, the fluttering of Ginny's lashes as she fought for life and the burning, smoldering gaze of the Dark Lord Voldemort, peering into his soul, as if to see into the reflection of his own that resided in there.

"—don't you think?"

Harry blinked. "I'm sorry?"

Light chuckled, shaking his head with a soft smile. Harry frowned involuntarily at the motion; even that looked so fluid. So practiced. So… natural. He had to remind himself that nothing of this was natural—just as Tom Riddle had so easily manipulated those around him with his beautiful face, Light Yagami did the same. It was all a façade, Harry reminded himself. This boy was using him.

"I was saying how I thought our Criminology class was a little bit easy."

"Is it?" Harry tilted his head. To be quite honest, he had no idea. He'd never attended an actual muggle class. At least, not since primary. "Perhaps it's not the most challenging," Harry allowed, deciding he may as well fake an opinion. "But I find the material stimulating."

"Yeah, I think so too. But then again, I'm kind of a nut about this kind of stuff—I kind listen to it all day long!" Light laughed, a little depreciatingly.

"Well, it is interesting." Harry nodded. "It gives you a lot to think about… I can see how you can get so immersed in it."

"So you want to go into Law when you graduate?" Light asked.

Harry paused. Did he? He was saved from having to formulate an answer immediately by the waitress scuttling over with a haggard look, depositing their food off the mountain in her arms, before carrying forward without a backwards glance. Harry didn't mind much though; the dish she laid down in front of him looked appealing enough. It also looked nothing like anything he'd ever had before. He was quickly beginning to see the appeal of Asian food—all the flavors and spices… Being here in Tokyo had also truly opened his eyes to sushi, great invention that it was. _There's the bright side to this whole mess, _he thought morbidly. _I'm trying new foods. _Now if only he could get the house elves at Hogwarts to make something similar.

"How'd you find this place?" He changed the subject swiftly, pretending that he hadn't heard, or had simply forgotten, Light's previous question.

"This place?" Light paused in his mouthful of noodles. He chewed thoughtfully, and then after clearing his throat; "Ah, it was introduced to me by a friend."

A friend? Harry thought, derisively. Yeah right. Harry doubted Light even knew the meaning of friends.

This, however, gave him pause.

Because if Light had picked this place out intentionally, then _why_? Was this just another act in the never ending theatrical play that was the elaborate scheme between Light and L? And if so, how? Harry decided that, to be quite frank, he simply didn't want to know. Thinking about their mind games gave _his _mind a headache, so he attempted to stave away from that particular topic as much as possible. Anyway, he could just ask Ryuk what Light was planning.

"Oh." Harry decided to simply let it slide. "Well, I like it. What is this called again?" He gestured to the plate full off noodles.

"Duck curry?" Light raised a brow, and then, smiling. "Sometimes I forget you're not from around here… you're accent is so misleading!"

Harry scratched the back of his neck, not really up to the task of explaining off the translation spell. "I've been told I have a way with languages." There. Not entirely a lie.

Light raised a brow. "That you do."

In a flurry of soundless motion, Ryuk deposited himself from the ceiling headfirst, spreading his wings and diving in front of Harry's face with a loud, _"Boo!" _Harry very nearly jolted, and only just managed to catch himself in time, schooling his face into impressive impassivity. Meanwhile, Light didn't even seem phased in the slightest. Not even a flicker of emotion passed through his face; no valid, physical reaction at all aside from the slight narrowing of his eyes.

Ryuk stared him down with a delighted, sprawling grin. His hollowed, yellow eyes seemed to engrave themselves into Harry's own with a certain, calamitous intent. The moment passed abruptly, and he swiveled his head in one-hundred eighty degrees to turn and face Light.

"_Hi, Light."_ He greeted with cheer. _"How are you? How's the date going?"_

Harry, taking the inopportune moment to sip from his water, narrowly missed choking.

Light made no move to reply, picking up his chopsticks and bringing his noodles to his mouth, blowing lightly. He took a bite, and then after he had swallowed, "This is pad thai." He said, gesturing to his own plate. "It's a very traditional Thai dish… also, I'd say, the most popular."

And then, "Care to try?"

Harry flushed. "Oh, oh no, I'm quite alright, thank you."

"No, really, it's delicious."

Harry wondered how he managed to get himself into these situations—and perhaps more pertinently, how he was supposed to get himself _out _of them. He shook his head. "I'm good, really. I'll be quite full with my own."

"_Well, this date doesn't look to be going all that well-are you sure he's into you, Light?" _Ryuk chortled.

Light narrowed his eyes. "No really, I insist." And suddenly, like an abrupt shift in Harry's vision, he could see the glowing, demonic presence which cloaked itself like shrouding darkness around Light. An almost inhuman, inherent malignant turn to his face, the color of his eyes perhaps, which quite quickly reminded Harry of just who was in front of him.

Dining with the devil himself indeed.

"Well." Harry swallowed, abruptly overcome with the desire for his wand. "If you insist."

The psychopath brought his chopsticks to Harry, managing to pass directly through Ryuk. Harry almost gagged at the thought of eating something which so easily passed through Ryuk's bowels, before he braced himself and gingerly opened his mouth. The food was… well, objectively, quite good. The act in which he'd had it, though, left something sour in his stomach.

It reminded him of where he was.

And _who _he was with.

On the surface, Harry thought, it may seem like a casual outing among friends—or more than friends, if Light's current actions were to be trusted—but Harry knew it would never be something so simple.

"_Light, Light…" _Ryuk chuckled. _"Are you doing that for the cameras? That's not very nice. I feel like you're scaring your date; he doesn't look to be having a good time."_

"Are you having a good time?" Light asked, a charming smile sliding over his face. The illusion vanished in front of Harry's eyes, leaving an enchanting boy in its wake.

"Yes." Harry answered, softly, the word like dust on his tongue. "I am."

His eye briefly flittered above Light's head—and, true to Ryuk's words, the beady, omniscient eye of a camera stared back at him.

"_Want to know a secret, Light?" _Ryuk maneuvered himself upside down until he perched himself on the edge of their table, a gargoyle of death between the salt and pepper shakers.

Ryuk moved in, so close that his lips would have brushed Light's hair if he wanted.

"_L is here." _He breathed.

And there—a flicker of movement, of recognition, in Light's eyes.

Immediately, Light reached out towards Harry. His eyes glowed alight with false emotion. "Tom," He breathed.

Harry jerked in Light's grasp.

"Tom…" The falter in Light's voice was so beautiful; such a gentle, lilting thing. Such a _fraud. _"Tom, I've never met anyone like you before. You're so… captivating."

_Captivating, am I? _Harry thought with a snort. _I've barely said ten words to you. _

He tilted his head, the face of a greek god framed in a halo of crisping, gold wisps of hair. "Would you want to do this again sometime?"

Harry didn't have to feign his indecisiveness. "I—I… Well I don't know. I'll have to think on it. Would that be okay?"

"Of course it would." The false smile fit so perfectly in his teeth. "I wouldn't mind at all—take your time."

"Thanks." Harry pulled his hand away.

_This man is a monster. _Harry thought. This was no Tom Riddle, no jaded boy wandering down the wrong path. This was a monster of its own making, so far down in its deeds that it bled the color of hell. This was no Tom Riddle.

There was no redemption to be found here.

.

Hours later, in a cloaking veil of hovering darkness, a set of luminescent eyes studied the exact same scene, over and over again.

Each time, he was drawn to the exact moment where another pair of eyes seemed to stare into his own—a shade of inexplicit verdant green, of which he could never decipher, met his own in the startling slip of a moment. Perhaps, however, it wasn't the shade that L pondered on the most. It was the emotion that gripped the striking color; it had him crouched here in the enveloping darkness, wondering on what it was—wondering on its origins.

Because L was fairly sure that in that exact moment of time, dining with a mass-murderer in a restaurant full of unknowing students, Tom Riddle had looked into his eyes—

And L had saw something like fear.

* * *

><p><em>ahhh ahhh ahh review! I can't actually get them in my mail anymore (idk what's going on) but I do come onto the site and read them! However, if you need to PM me for any reason go to my site and contact me there. There should be a link on my profile page! <em>


	9. Drones in the Valley

_Everybody praise Tycho. Without him, I doubt this chapter would have ever come to existence. _

_I apologize for the people who wanted self-righteous BAMF Harry who judiciously strikes everyone down because he is God, pretty much, and can do what he pleases. IMO Harry would be the opposite; Harry would be the guy who randomly woke up and found himself God and then tried to do everything in his power to get away from himself. Idk why this characterization of Harry speaks to me so much but it does. I love the idea of him being the most powerful man in the world and wanting nothing to do with himself._

* * *

><p>.<p>

Harry wandered somewhat aimlessly around the grounds before the sprawling castle. A nonexistent wind had blown the upside-down structure a bit to the left, and as a result the staircase to the front steps had gotten more tangled up in the air than usual, and Harry didn't want to chance the idea of walking up it when there was still such a chance it might blow over. He could have flown up there, of course. Even though he'd never flown with wings the experience was rather intrinsic; much like floating, or flying on a broom. He tilted his head upward, into the gray sky. Something arbitrary stopped him from doing so, however. He wondered absentmindedly what it was.

He stopped his involuntary pacing and rested at the bottom of the staircase. Above him, the stars groaned in the silent wind, twisting and curling like a long, pale ribbon connecting the castle to the ground. He felt about as lost as the castle right now: lost and four seconds away from blowing away in the wind.

Harry digressed.

He wasn't entirely sure what he had been expecting, what with postponing his existential crisis for a good five years or so.

The Death Note was a heavy, insurmountable weight in his hands.

He sat there for some time; a flickering figure in an unsubstantial landscape, the only swath of color in a grayscale world. Eternity could have blown through, looped around again, and one would not be able to tell from the world unfurling around him. Nothing changed in this timeless, decrepit place. Nothing, perhaps, but Harry.

He split the spine open, staring into the pensive lines of paper as if they could possibly hold any answers for him.

In the space behind his eyes he could see the subtle tilt of Light Yagami's head, the narrowing of his demonic eyes and the slight curve of his lips and in the quiet places of the memory the distinction between Light Yagami and Tom Riddle blurred again.

He looked back down at the book in his hands.

Would he have killed the Dark Lord with this book if he had the chance?

He pondered this.

Probably.

A soundless figure dropped from the sky. Harry did not look up, even as black feathers fluttered quietly around him, diffused in the retrograde light of the benign sun. The monster's figure loomed above him, blanketing him in a pattern of darkness. When the Death King finally turned upwards, the dark silhouette of Ryuk towered over him, nothing discernible but for the outline of gold burning at the edges of his profile.

"It's light out." Harry said, nonsensically.

"The sun does that sometimes." Ryuk agreed.

Sunset, Harry's mind supplied. The lamp posts at the forefront of the staircase were off, the light casting ominous shadows in their wake. He'd never seen a sunset here in the world of death. He'd also never seen a sun. Harry shut the book with a thud, standing. He barely cusped Ryuk's shoulder, and over the hedge of dark feathers he could see a blinding light off in the indeterminable distance.

"He's calling you." Ryuk turned to him, as if picking up a thread of conversation that Harry has long forgotten. "Do you hear it?"

"Yes." Harry replied.

_Harry, _a voice says in the silent wind. _Harry I'm waiting for you._

He knew who it as.

Ryuk tilted his head. "Will you go to him?"

Did he have anything better to do with his life?

"Sure." He said, agreeably. "Where is he?"

Ryuk turned his head skyward. Above them, the castle floated in the breeze; an amalgamation of winding towers and elaborate embellishments. Ryuk pointed to the tip of the tower—some ways sideways.

Harry sighed, opened his wings, and flew.

There was an old man precariously balanced on the edge of the terrace, surrounded by dilapidated, but exotic spires strung up from the tops of the castle. The sun remained a blinding presence behind him, paneling the ground beneath him in long shafts of gold and yellow. Privately, Harry could admit that he'd never quite seen something as beautiful as light in the world of death. It was certainly a sight to see. Almost as much as the man in front of him.

"So, when did you die?" Harry asked without preamble.

"Oh, not too long ago." Replied Grindlewald, airy and conversational. They could have been talking of the weather, for all the inflection given in his voice. "It was quite the show, you know. You should have come to watch."

"I can imagine." Harry intoned flatly. What a spectacle it must have been: was he burned at the stake? He could imagine quite a few people finding great, perverse pleasure in that. The muggle way? Disinterestedly, Harry wondered how, exactly, the death penalty was enacted in the Wizarding World. With an avada kedavra? But who casted it?

He also couldn't imagine that his presence went unnoticed.

Grindlewald turned over his shoulder. Harry could not make out anything discernible about his expression—nothing but one burning blue eye visible in the searing light.

"And how are you, Harry?"

Harry blinked.

"How do you mean?"

He felt as if perhaps this was all a dream. It certainly made about as much sense as one.

Grindlewald turned around fully at that. He looked just about as Harry had imagined; old, tired, and resigned. "You seem to be fairing quite poorly."

Harry blinked rapidly. "And how, exactly, am I supposed to be fairing?"

"Well," Grindelwald appraised, something like mirth lighting in his eyes. "If I was you, I'm sure I would have merrily offed most of the human race in favor of my own gains."

"I think I'll pass on that." Harry cut in, dry.

The homicidal old man gave him a smile, though it was bereft of any significant emotion.

"I am though, I suppose." Harry sighed. "Fairing poorly. I wish the Hallows had never come to me at all."

"I'd think you would." Grindlewald agreed, quite serious. "You have always struck me as a pacifist in a most inopportune situation. Tell me Harry, do you believe violence can be justified?"

"Absolutely not." Answered the death king, immediately.

Grindlewald snorted. "Irony." He muttered, shaking his head.

Harry blinked a few more times. "What is a pacifist?"

"One who does not believe war or violence is the answer." Explained Grindlewald. "Does this not strike you as familiar?"

"It does." Harry nodded.

"The Wizarding world would have had the Dark Lord hung for the world to see." Grindlewald noted, austere. "They would have rejoiced at the sight. They _did _rejoice, I believe, at his death. As they did at mine. But you… you derived no pleasure in the demise of your Dark Lord Voldemort. And you would not have found solace in mine."

Harry swallowed, looking away. In the distance, mountains of jewels glimmered in the flawless light; even then, however, they were devoid of any significant vivacity. The world rolled out beneath him in an eternal stretch of wasteland, nothing but the overbearing dome of the sky to enclose it. He could privately admit that he wasn't all that surprised that Grindlewald could see into all he had to hide. At times he felt he was the only one on this earth who could never find a reason to harm someone else—even the man who slayed his own parents, who was accountable for the deaths of thousands, who was _personally _accountable for the deaths of many of his friends. He should have relished that moment: the clarity of the Dark Lord falling to his knees, the shock in his eyes as he fell into the dust. But all that lingered in his soul in that moment was indifference.

"Perhaps you were meant to be Death King after all," The dark lord surmised. "Certainly there is no one else who would find such little pleasure in it."

"Why me?" Harry blurted. "Why not you?"

Grindlewald shrugged. "Perhaps simple fortune. Harry, I would not know."

There was a stone that burned its way into his pocket no matter how many times he threw it away, a wand that always ended up in his trunk, whether he had snapped it in two or returned it to Dumbledore's grave. There was a cloak that sat as a quiet presence at the foot of his bed, as if to remind him that death would never find him.

Harry feared he already knew the answer.

He moved to sit next to the most dangerous wizard to have ever lived, crouching at the end of the ledge. He felt as if the blinding light should give him some small comfort, a flicker of warmth. There was nothing; no cold or warmth to be found in this world.

"The cloak." Harry found himself asking; an almost arbitrary question. "When did you get it?"

Grindlewald looked slightly surprised at this. "Why Harry, did you not know?"

Harry turned his face away from the light. "Know what?"

"I killed your grandfather." Said the dead dark lord, slowly. "The Potter Manor had been a base of operations for Dumbledore's men at the time. I overtook it, and took the cloak for my own… for some time, actually. Dumbledore retrieved it when all my personal items were seized; I assume he must have given it back to your father."

"Is that why that place was burned to the ground?" Harry wondered, aloud.

"I'm sure I had something to do with that, yes." Grindlewald's lips upturned slightly.

Harry looked towards the old man, and he to him. It appeared as if Grindlewald was expecting anger on his part. Perhaps, at some point, there would have been. But any inflection had long since left Harry, it seems, leaving little else but lament and regret in its wake.

Harry shrugged. "It was an ugly thing, anyway."

He felt somewhat compelled to ask, "Why did you kill him?"

"Your grandfather?" Grindlewald's brows raised. "Well, because he was there, I suppose."

Somehow, this did not strike Harry as dishonest, nor surprising. Nor even, as alarming. The idea of death over such insignificance no longer appalled him as it should.

Harry hugged his knees. "You're right." He said at length. "Maybe I am a pacifist…"

He turned his head back into the sun.

Harry added, bitterly, "But these days, I can't bring myself to feel much of anything anymore."

"Is that so?"

"I met the most corrupted human in the world the other day." He sighed. "I could stop him, you know. He kills hundreds everyday like it's nothing—and it would take me just as little effort to kill him, too. He reminded me so much of Voldemort: it scared me."

"He scared you?" Grindlewald tilted his head.

Harry shook his head. "No. I scared myself. He was—he was _holding my hand,_ and I was sitting there, thinking to myself, 'Well, I'm going to have to kill this one too."

Harry could not decipher the look in Grindlewald's eyes. Not pity, nor empathy. Consideration, perhaps.

"I don't want to kill anyone anymore." He mumbled. "I don't want to be Death King."

"Well, Harry, rest assured if I could somehow wrestle the title away from you, I would. As it is, I am set to live an eternity in this pitiful afterlife." Grindlewald said, quite cheerful. "I'd put the title to excellent use."

"You'd just off everyone." Harry noted, cross.

"Oh, no, I don't have the energy for that anymore." Retorted the German, merrily. "But to that end, I also would not feel such remorse at tearing away at all this excess life."

Harry chuckled, mirthlessly.

"I cautioned you for a reason, Harry." Grindlewald reminded, stern. "I could see it then and I could see it now: you are no killer. Metaphorically and physically, the killing curse destroys you. The act of killing destroys you. It will besiege you if you are not careful—if you do not have the capacity for it. You do not have it in you. Some people do. _I _do. Your Lord Voldemort did. Certainly Dumbledore did. But you are different than us; you would see a peaceful resolution if you could."

"Thanks?"

"This is not a good thing." Grindlewald laughed. "Harry: the fact of the matter is, there are people like me, and your Dark Lord. If we had our way, we would watch the world burn. Light Yagami would do the same thing."

"What are you trying to say?"

"That this world is no place for pacifists, Harry; neither this one nor the one we've left behind. There is no room in this place of violence for a soul as kind and brave as yours."

Harry did not know whether Grindlewald was offending him or not. He didn't know if he _felt _offended. A bit, perhaps. Even though the mass murderer's words were true.

"I should kill him, then."

"Oh yes, that would be best for all of humanity." Agreed Grindlewald, jovial. "But, would that be best for you?"

Harry blinked into the endless sun. "I'm sorry?"

"Often we forget how selfish it is to ask others for this task: it is no easy feat, taking a life. And as I have said—you are not fit for it. You'd see yourself to ruin if the world could have what it likes of you, their hero to slay all their foes."

A tide of exasperation and resignation besieged him. "The most prolific murderer in history; giving out sound advice. Must you be so wise?"

"Ah well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration." Grindlewald mused, rubbing his beard appraisingly. In a lot of ways, his many similarities with Dumbledore are alarming as they are prolific. "And you see, Harry, evil I may be, but I am old, and unfortunately with this age comes quite a bit of foresight."

Harry blew a raspberry. "Well, at least here you can't wreak havoc on society as we know it." And then, startled, "Why _are _you here?" Quite the belated question, but nothing about Grindlewald's presence had struck him as surprising.

Grindlewald laughed.

"Consider it punishment for my deeds."

.

.

.

The fake sun had long since set, leaving the world of death in a stasis between not-night and not-day. Harry didn't know where it went; perhaps it maundered off for a time and came back when it grew bored of its travels. That made about as much sense as everything else in this forsaken place did. Rather absentmindedly he wondered if he could summon the sun back—would it listen to him, as all other creatures of this lawless place did?

"—You tell him—"

"—why _me—_"

"—well I won't—"

Harry sighed, looking up from the neat arrangement of papers upon his desk. In the dark jaws of the hallway he could make out the almost indiscernible shapes of his servants; in the dim light the edges of their gaudy jewels sparkled slightly.

"You may as well stop arguing outside of my office and come in." Harry noted with exasperation.

The shuffling and hushed, angered whispers fell silent. Gukku and Justin trudged sheepishly into the light of his office, looking as if they'd mauled each other out in the hallway. Gukku's strings of golden necklaces had fallen off down his shoulder, and Justin appeared to have entangled most of his bracelets in his ribs.

"Sorry, my liege." Justin bowed low. "We were just… having disagreements."

"Yes, I could deduce as much." Harry replied, dry. "Can I help you two?"

Gukku shoved a hoof into Justin's side. This got about as lodged as the rest of Justin's bracelets, and for a moment the two struggled to pull the goat's foot out of the skeleton's ribcage. When they finally managed to break apart—after many minutes and a lot of broken jewelry—Justin coughed ineloquently.

"Well, you see… There is a bit of a situation."

Harry narrowed his eyes slowly, deceptively calm. "What kind of situation?"

The two shared a look, and then Gukku blurted, "We didn't want you to get mad at us again so we didn't make any bets or anything!"

"Yes, that's wonderful." Harry made an impatient noise. "But _what _is the situation?"

"Ah… well… another Death Note has appeared in the human world."

Harry blinked.

"_Excuse me_?"

The two cowered back. Justin threw his hands up in the air. The majority of his bracelets clattered to the ground. "We had nothing to do with it!"

"Yes, yes we swear!" Gukku nodded violently.

"I believe you." Harry answered quickly, much to the evident relief of the two Shinigami. "But I still want to know who it was."

The two shared another look.

"Rem."

Harry turned to his windows. Between two panels of stained glass sat Deridovely; a terrifying figure cloaked in black, indiscernible for everything but his ominous scythe.

Harry blinked. "Do I know this Rem?"

"Doubtful." Deridovely snorted. "Rem is.. a strange one."

"Doesn't talk to much of anyone." Gukku agreed. "Or gamble, much. She keeps to herself and doesn't like humans at all."

"Wait. She?" Harry balked, and then looked between all three of them. "You have genders?"

Justin shrugged. "I suppose. But they're rather meaningless, as we do not procreate. However, according to Gelus, who was a Shinigami who passed away, the intended use of—

"Oh, enough of that." Harry interrupted with a huff. "Deridovely, would you mind bringing this Rem to me? I'd like to get this sorted out."

Deridovely nodded, getting to his feet and drifting out the open window.

Harry shook his head with a sigh. "What is it with you Shinigami and messing around with the humans? Is it always like this?" That may explain a lot about history, if so.

Justin shook his head. "No, my King. In fact, it's never been done before."

Harry's mouth dropped. He closed it with suspended disbelief. "So… what, it all just magically happened while I'm here?"

Justin shrugged. "Looks that way."

"In Rem's defense," Sputtered Gukku. "It's not her fault that there is another Death Note. You see, the Shinigami Justin mentioned, Gelus, gave up his life to kill off a man who was intending to murder a young girl he had taken a liking to. This is one of the only ways a Shinigami can die; by interrupting fate and prolonging the life of someone who was intended to die. As a result, Rem came into the possession of two Death Notes."

Harry's expression turned thoughtful. "This Shinigami… Gelus… he gave up his life for a human girl?"

Justin shifted uneasily. "Well, yes." Said the skeleton, looking at a loss for words.

"Huh." Harry mused aloud. "That's almost… why, that's almost touching."

"It doesn't happen often." Justin was quick to say.

Deridovely returned in a clout of inky black smoke. By his side was a Shinigami Harry had never had the displeasure of knowing: almost as if in response to the skeletal appearance of Justin, this one looked like a half-unwrapped mummy. If it really was female… there was no overt way to tell.

"Are you Rem?" Harry asked coolly, leaning against the side of his desk.

The impassive Shinigami turned to him slowly. "Yes." She said, slowly. There was a bit of trepidation in her eyes, though. Ah. So she'd at least heard of him. "My King." She added, wary.

"Would you like to explain to me why you've given a human girl a Death Note?"

"It was hers to have." Rem shrugged. "Gelus gave his life for her… it was only fitting she take his Death Note."

Harry hummed thoughtfully. "Has she used it?"

As if sensing his train of thought, the Shinigami began to look mildly alarmed. "My King…" She intoned slowly. "Misa—she… does not mean any harm. She is just a young girl—

"So she _is_ using it." Harry surmised, bland.

"Well, yes." Rem halted, cowed.

"But my King," Rem began, falteringly, "She does… she is…" The Shinigami appeared to be struggling for words.

"Dumb?" Gukku supplied.

"Obsessed." Justin added with a scoff.

"Naïve." Rem finished, with a glare to her counterparts. "Misa is naïve. And I fear she has been tricked into the machinations of both Light Yagami and that detective. She does not know what she has put herself into—she was just trying to get Light's attention."

"Wait, I'm sorry. She wanted Light's attention?" Harry echoed, genuinely baffled. "And so she's killing people?"

"Not the smartest apple in the basket." Deridovely snorted.

Rem looked enraged on the girl's behalf.

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "This… is getting out of hand." He said at length. "We can't have so many Death Notes in the human realm. We shouldn't have any, _at all._ Someone explain to me what's going on down there."

"The humans have gone into uproar with the coming of what they call the 'Second Kira'."

"Misa." Harry inputted. "Using Gukku's Death Note."

"Yes." Justin agreed. "And in doing so Misa Amane has caught the attention of both L and Light. This has thrown an even larger wrench in L's plans, of course, but Light is really quite enthused. The two have met, and because Misa has made the deal—

"What deal?"

"The Shinigami Deal."

Another figure crouched upon his window sill. Harry wondered if this was going to be a running theme in his life; creatures finding their way to his window. In the frame of the sole open panel, wedged between the elaborate stained glass sat Grindlewald, looking comfortable and at ease lounging in the wide framing of sky.

"A human sacrifices half of their lifespan in order to get Shinigami eyes." He elaborated. "_Our _eyes. They allow them to see what we see: the names of all humans, and the amount of time they have left to live."

"And she has them?" Harry's eyes widened. He whirled back to Rem. "You gave them to her?"

"She asked." Replied the Shinigami, meek.

"This is absurd." Harry hissed. "This is foolish. Rem, you are to revoke them. And take away her Death Note, as well."

"I cannot." The Shinigami protested. "Once ownership has passed to another—it cannot be broken with anything but death."

"Great." Harry muttered. "So now there's two of them."

His servants looked fearful and concerned, and Harry drew a breath. He imagined that the Death Eaters must have looked something similar—wary and terrified of their powerful master, who held their lives in his hands. The similarities between him and Voldemort multiplied by the second.

"Enough." He sighed. "You're all dismissed."

Gukku and Justin nodded, descending back into the darkness of the hallway as if they couldn't get out of there fast enough. Deridovely disappeared, looking mostly unconcerned. Rem remained, an uneasy presence at the front of his desk.

"Wait, my King." She called, imploring. "What… what of Misa?"

"I will decide what to do with her." Harry replied, coldly.

"But my King!" Rem pleaded. "She didn't mean to—

Harry waved her off. "Yes, I understand. But the fact of the matter is—I can't have one human running around with a Death Note. Two, even more so."

Rem faltered at that, looking as if she had more to say. Finally, she only nodded. "Of course, my King." She bowed low, and erupted into a dark cloud. When it cleared, nothing remained behind.

"I can't just sit around and do nothing, can I?" Harry asked, faintly, to the old man behind him.

Grindlewald hummed noncommittally. "You could." He shrugged. "There's no one stopping you from doing nothing."

"Except me."

"Except yourself." Grindlewald agreed. "Perhaps I spoke to soon, Harry. It is quite clear that you detest the idea of murder—but it is infinitely clearer that you also cannot stand aside and watch the Dark Lords of this world set the earth on fire."

"What am I to do, then?" Harry turned to the man in the window.

Grindlewald shrugged. "And how am I to know?"

Harry wished the old man could have some way of knowing—have some kind of advice, even when Harry inherently knew that no one could help him in this but himself. Idly, he thought on what his life could have been, had he not been Harry Potter. Perhaps he'd have married Ginny, been a happy lad, satisfied with everything he had, be it quite a bit or just enough, live a merry and wondrous life without any knowledge or intimacy with death.

But he knew in his heart that these were just dreams.

He could not go on as a wary observer: Misa Amane had forced his hand.

.

.

.

Harry looked up, despondent and mournful, the sky before him a watery grave.

The manor appeared to have long since lost its splendor, even though he had been here not but a few weeks ago. Now, the white washed palace seemed overtaken with sorrow, empty and hollow and full of regret. Though the entrance hallway still retained its grand splendor, sparkling even in the dreary, dim light, he felt as if its beauty could no longer touch him. The enormous chrysanthemum centerpiece seemed immortalized in time, much like the timeless hostess of the house.

Harry stood at the front steps, holding Chrysanthe's letter in hand. He could hear the doorknocker, Alfonso, slumbering behind him.

The death king blinked up into the tumultuous clouds just as the first of the rain began to splatter about his feet.

There was nothing more to it, he supposed.

.

.

.

Hideki Ryuuga sat perched on a wiry chair just outside a coffee shop on the edge of the To-Oh campus, looking like a strange, spindly bird enjoying a cup of coffee and perhaps looking over yesterday's notes. Harry doubted that he needed to look over his notes from an entry level criminology class. He doubted L needed to go to a criminology class, _period. _Undoubtedly he was picking apart the Kira case; maybe even re-watching footage from Light's room.

Harry scrunched his nose.

As he approached the table, L made no visible move that he had noticed the shadow falling over him.

Not for the first time since Harry had found out about the second Death Note, he marveled at L's genius. Here he was, a human without any capacity nor any knowledge of the Shinigami realm and the Death Note, and yet he still managed to come to the right conclusions, to find the answers that no one else could. A begrudging respect bloomed inside Harry at the thought.

Much like Grindlewald and Dumbledore, and he and Tom Riddle—Light Yagami and L Lawliet were two sides of the same coin.

Light Yagami was the darkness, though—he was Lord Voldemort, the burning inside of a little orphaned boy. L was his determination, all his drive and all his fears.

L was what could have been.

"Tom Riddle." He began without preamble, abruptly stopping his erratic typing. He still did not look up.

"Yes?" Harry responded, hesitantly.

"You are not Tom Riddle. He does not exist." L noted, his eyes finally leaving the screen. He frowned thoughtfully. "You've been lying."

"I have." Harry agreed.

L turned to the boy in front of him—this strange creature who had walked into L's plans and uncoiled his elaborate web, who had taken all his beliefs and turned them on his head. Little did this insignificant boy know, but he had done something few people in the world had ever managed; he made L question himself. Had made L question his analysis of Light.

He did not appear surprised or disconcerted that L had figured his game. L was rather… disheartened at that. He had spent some time combing through records of Tom Riddle in England. It was a misleadingly uncommon name. He had been at first surprised, and then intrigued, when it became clear that there _was _no Tom Riddle. That this boy had so effectively played both L and Light. They had both taken him for granted—he did not appear to be anything significant, just a pretty face that had so unwittingly stepped into their chess board. L had assumed that he was just an unfortunate ploy Light had tossed at the detective to perhaps lead him off his trail; but it was becoming quite clear that Tom must have machinations of his own.

But this figure in front of him, watching him idly with a slight, amused tilt of his lips—this did not seem to be a poor boy caught in a game of chase.

"Who are you?" L questioned sharply. "And why are you here? What do you know?"

"That's a lot of questions." Not-Tom blinked, taken aback. The charming smile came in full. It was infinitely more lethal than Light's—Light's was a farce, a fallacy that was as easy to slip on and off as the rest of his persona. But this—this subtle arch of lips and the quiet glimmer in his eyes—was genuine. And in that, a thousand times more dangerous.

"You're avoiding them." L pointed out. He swiftly shut his laptop. It wouldn't do for this boy to catch even a glimpse of his work, not with his allegiances so uncertain.

The boy's smile widened. "It's Harry." He said, almost bashfully. "My name is Harry."

"And how am I to believe that?" L asked.

Harry shrugged. "You don't have to. I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it."

"Besides," He began anew. "You haven't been all that forthcoming either, now have you, L Lawliet?"


	10. Always Something

_You can thank my dearest Veltpunch, Tycho, and all of you who left your heartfelt remarks for this chapter. Yes **Willy Wonka is Wonking**, every review counts. __Also, the little One Direction cookie is for Suneohair, who provided the summary for this chapter that spurred me into writing it - _

_Misa Amane tips the scale: Harry tips it back._

* * *

><p>"Is this necessary?" Harry drawled, as Watari took a sloping turn down a side street, and the car pitched violently to the left. L managed to brace himself by holding the side. Handcuffed, Harry had no choice but to lurch with the movement.<p>

L glanced over to his direction with narrowed eyes; the most emotion Harry had ever seen on his life. Perhaps it was even genuine. "Yes." He intoned, turning away once more to the window.

Harry glanced down at his hands, chained together. He could probably disintegrate the metal with his eyes closed. In fact, he'd been debating that for the better part of the car ride—and whether it would be in his best interests. Actually, he'd been considering the best way to draw the subject of the whole "Death God" thing to L since he'd tipped his hand. Well, if he wanted to be theatrical, he could probably blow the whole car up in fireworks, in a way very reminiscent of the Weasley twins.

The thought made him smile.

"I'm pleased you're in such high spirits for this."

Harry turned back to him, still smiling. "Are you going to interrogate me?"

"Do you want me to?" L returned, ominous.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't." Harry responded lightly. He looked out the window again. The sun burned through the tops of the Tokyo skyscrapers; high noon. What time would that make it in England? Barely morning?

He turned back to L. "It might not be in your best interests."

"Is that so?" L perched his hands on his knees, resolutely staring ahead. "What is in my best interests, then?"

"You should listen to me." Harry replied. "It might save you a lot of time."

"Who do you work for, _Harry_?" L finally turned to look at him, scrutinizing him with dark eyes.

To his surprise, the visage that gazed back at him looked oddly wistful. He couldn't categorize the expression entirely; something regretful in the sea glass of his eyes.

A slight, disconsolate smile. "What makes you think I work for someone?"

"There are very few people who know my name; even less who know me by sight. And those who do are not to be taken lightly, so I'll ask again. Who do you work for?"

"No one." Harry riposted, devoid of any litigious effect.

L's eyes narrowed once more; skepticism clear.

Harry grinned to himself. "Maybe the better question would be—who is working for _me_?"

If possible, L looked even more concerned.

Harry turned to him, smile growing. "Do you want to know?" He asked, wicked.

L frowned.

"Yes." He answered, at length.

Harry took both his hands in his. The detective startled abruptly at that, eyes flying to Harry's face. The moment crumbled around them; shattered pieces of light drifted over his face, refracted pieces of color moving faster than he could catch.

He drew in a breath, feeling like perhaps his lungs had rearranged themselves in the interim. Disoriented and out of sorts, he blinked back into the world and couldn't quite put the sounds and smells into a coherent picture.

The sound of water, and the soft, effervescent scent of flowers. A house bloomed behind Harry, made of marble that washed away in the white light of morning, spindly, crawling ivy winding around the pillars near the front steps. The sky itself burned into a wroth, indeterminable shade of gray. It made Harry's eyes look large and luminous; too bright to truly be human. They are magnetic, and constellated: glissades of red in the center; washed into the emerald like rime. Harry blinked, all at one the colors faded, leaving nothing but a perspicuous, sea glass green. Aside from the lovely coloring, nothing was overtly disconcerting about them.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

A piece of sun burned in his hands.

L looked down. No, not a sun, but in the flash of light his handcuffs have fallen apart and plummeted to the ground.

He stood, tilting his head down, and extending his hand.

His brain had stopped functioning correctly since the moment they had arrived in this strange space, with a wicked sky that seemed to detach it from the rest of the world. Tom—_Harry_—led him through the winding white palace, and L followed without hesitance. He led him to a courtyard in the back, where an iron wrought table set for three sat before an enormous fountain. It's set, and looks as if it had stayed set for three for some time.

He didn't ask, and Harry did not seem all that interested in presenting an answer.

He sat himself with little fanfare in the seat in front of the fountain; everything in his movements suggested he'd done this before. Was this his house, then? What a benign question to ask; Harry had, for all intent purposes, teleported him to a whole other world—dimension, even?—broken his handcuffs with little regard for the laws of physics, and was asking the air for tea for two. And the only thing L could possibly rationalize in his head long enough to form a question is—whose house is this?

"Not mine." Harry said, and it took a moment for L to realize that he was, indeed, reading L's mind.

"I'm not reading your mind." Harry rolled his eyes. "I respect your right to privacy. However, if you are going to think so loudly, you make it a very difficult thing to do."

The ugliest creature L had ever seen in his entire life plummeted into the space between them, brandishing a set of finely polished porcelain cups, and a heavy, iron-wrought tea kettle. With no small amount of mutiny, the tea kettle proceeded to pour itself into the cups. The cups themselves seemed to protest this act, before sullenly plodding onto the table.

Harry sighed, shaking his head. "They still don't listen to me." He remarked, rather forlorn. Who were they? The teacups?

The dilapidated creature winked itself out of existence once more, and L turned wide eyes toward Harry, who was sipping cautiously at his tea. When it appeared to satisfy him, he drank it in earnest.

"It's green tea." He enthused. "You know, I've truly gotten quite fond of Japanese teas. I can see why they've caught the attention of the masses—we drink it even in London, did you know? It's quite posh."

"Nevermind the _tea_." L interrupted, brisk and with no small amount of hysteria. "What—

"Before you begin to ask questions," Harry held up a hand in warning. "I'll warn you in advance that I'm not going to answer all of them."

He closed his mouth, expression turning fractious. Then why bring him here in the first place? "Then what will you answer?"

Harry hid a smile behind his cup. "Well, you'll have to ask and see."

As if that wasn't the most irritating thing L had heard in possible his whole life. All he did was ask questions—but normally, he expected the answers to have logical explanations. And how was he to find any sort of logical explanation for the past ten minutes? It appeared that, no matter what name Harry was going by, he would still forever be an indomitable obstacle in L's goals. Perhaps something even more; something infinitely more dangerous.

An indomitable enemy.

"Why did you bring me here?" He decided upon, first and foremost.

Harry threw him an amused glance. "Always with the hard ones first." He muttered under his breath. And then, louder. "To even the playing field."

Like that even answered anything.

L frowned. What playing field? Could he possibly be talking about…

The detective narrowed his eyes.

"Light Yagami."

Harry tilted his head, neither in agreement nor disagreement, everything about him shrouded in a state of repose. "Why do you think Kira is Light Yagami?"

L shrugged, absently running a finger down the handle of his cup. It was clearly well taken care of. "There is a four percent chance he is Kira." He murmured.

"That doesn't sound like very good odds." Harry pointed out.

"It is the largest percentage of anyone in the world." L returned.

Harry paused. "Ah." He said, at length.

L found his attention wandering to the world around them, when it became clear Harry would not elaborate further. Opalescent light scattered about the grounds, devoid of any significant warmth. There was no particular color to it, nor to the vast, overwhelming sky above. Perhaps Harry had truly teleported them into another dimension, another plane entirely, a diminutive space where matter had rearranged itself into nothing but this white washed world; the silent spray of water, glittering droplets diffusing the air behind Harry's head; the alluring, carnivorous green of his eyes. A transient existence. It felt as if time could not reach them here, in the spaces between light and lament.

Harry poured himself another cup of tea.

"Do you know how Kira kills?" He asked, after it appeared an endless eternity had come and gone between them.

"Yes." He replied.

"Will you tell me?" He pressed.

"Yes." Harry repeated. "Though it may not be of much help."

His brows furrowed.

"I brought you here to show you that circumstances beyond your realm of understanding exist." Harry explained, elaborating upon his previous question. "That how Kira kills cannot be traced nor explained away through logical means."

He was right. That wasn't much help. But, of course, it would be rather helpful to know either way.

"How?" L asked, bracing himself—though for what, he didn't know. The answer could be anything; there was no way to predict beforehand what would come from Harry's mouth.

"An object that is not his fell into his hands." Harry began. "With a name and a face, this book can kill anyone, in any fashion, at any time."

L blinked, processing.

"It is, quite applicably, called a death note."

L looked at him sharply. "It's a book?"

"Yes."

L frowned, brows furrowing. A book. A nondescript book. It was hard to say if he'd ever seen it—Light Yagami was quite studious. He almost always had a book in hand.

"What can you tell me about it?"

"Well, it's black." Harry replied, flatly. "It doesn't look like much."

As he had suspected.

"Is there any way to tell who has it?"

"No."

L tapped the side of his teacup thoughtfully. As he'd feared. A thought came to him. "Can _you _tell who has one?"

Harry smiled, giving nothing away.

Time to change tact.

"_Would_ you tell me?" L continued on.

"I don't need to tell you anything." Harry pointed out. "You've done a fine job of deducing that yourself."

He involuntarily breathed out a sigh of relief. So he'd been right. Light Yagami was Kira.

He studied the boy in front of him, as he finally took a sip of tea. It was… well, it was green tea. Perhaps a bit bland, but otherwise completely insignificant. He wasn't sure what he had thought it would taste like. Something otherworldly, perhaps. Something befitting of the dream around them. And the cup was a cup; made of porcelain and embellished in gold.

Everything was how it seemed, except for the boy in front of him, who was no boy at all.

"Why are you telling me this?" The thought came to him quite suddenly. Perhaps he did not understand anything of this facsimile world Harry brought him to, but he did understand people, and their motivations. And no one does anything for free. There was always a personal motive behind every action.

"I'm being very selfish." Harry admitted, though not particularly apologetic. "You see, perhaps it is me who should right the wrongs Kira has caused. And yet, I am passing this on to you."

L paused. "Why me?"

Harry's lips tilted slightly, into something approaching a smile."Because you are human. And I hope that, if I give you capabilities even to that of Kira, you will overcome him." There was something all-consuming to his eyes; something alarming. And yet his fragile face and soft smile belied something entirely different.

"Without you ever having to get involved." L noted.

"Yes." Harry agreed.

"And what capabilities will you give me?" L asked. "Not the death note."

"No, not a death note." Harry allowed. He smiled, wry. "I'm hoping just the knowledge of how it works will be enough for you to overcome them both."

"You're speaking of the other Kira."

Harry nodded. "Misa Amane and Light Yagami." He said at last.

"Misa Amane?" L blinked. The model?

Unexpected, but not displeasing. She was rather dull; surely it couldn't be too hard to find her mistakes.

He shook his head. "There's a lot you're not telling me." He noted unduly.

Harry looked taken aback. "A bit of an understatement." He acknowledged with a startled laugh. L found himself surprised at the sound.

He… didn't think he'd ever heard Harry laugh. When he filtered through his memories, he found no recollection of Harry ever being sincerely happy at all. There were quite a few where he was perfunctorily pleasant, as he had been for almost the entirety of this sojourn, but he could not recall a time where Harry had ever looked genuinely roused by anything. He'd assumed at the time that Tom Riddle was simply too shallow for significant capacities; this was clearly not the case. Because nothing about Harry could be described as shallow—not when his secrets seemed to bend the ties of physics and logic itself.

L tilted his head. "What are you?"

Perhaps the most significant question of them all.

Harry appraised him indifferently, marmoreal features giving nothing away. Once again L found himself unwillingly drawn to the luminescent eyes.

Finally, he smiled. "The Death King."

.

.

.

He finished his tea and had made quick work of the tray of biscuits. The strange creature—the house elf—came by once more with an ornate tray of finger cakes that L had been working through for the majority of the past hour. Nothing had yet to make sense, and L had decided to save himself the headache and not attempt to unravel this place. Perhaps this was wonderland, he mused. He certainly was no naïve little girl, but Harry could surely play the Cheshire. He was enigmatic enough. And there were plenty of tea and crumpets and not an ounce of logic to be found anywhere.

Throughout the process Harry did not remark again on his title as the monarch of death, even though L found himself burning with curiosity. What did that mean? He'd mentioned Death Notes and Death Gods but never again did he speak of the Death King.

Harry was infinitely wiser beyond his years; he appeared troubled, and ill at ease. Though there were remnants of a person from before that lingered in his skin: an expression of humored disbelief, a capricious smile. L found his moods mercurial and unpredictable, though never violent. L could never know what changed him from amused to pensive—what events had happened in his life that L unknowingly remarked upon.

That said, Harry didn't actually tell him much at all. He did not explain how they managed to find themselves here in this not-world, lost in the ether and the smoldering gray sky. He did not explain the strange creature that came to fill their teacups, or how he knew of the intricacies of this 'Death Note'. L wasn't sure if he held an unshakable belief that L would be able to figure it all out himself, or that he simply just didn't want L to know.

Probably the latter.

"That's all you can tell me?" L murmured, consciously withholding the disappointment in his voice as he busied himself with his tea bag. Ah. He'd let it sit for too long. A pity.

"There's not much else to say."

L refrained from pointing out that there was much more to say—there appeared to be a whole world of words to say.

He didn't though, stirring his tea thoughtfully. "You won't tell me how you came to have this knowledge, where we are, or _what _you are." He remarked. "Is there anything you _can _tell me?"

Harry tapped his chin. "About the Death Note?"

"About anything."

He gave pause at that.

"Don't go looking for me." He said at length, meeting L's gaze with his burning, inhuman eyes.

He could read everything in this. Perhaps not in the words, but in the gaze that held his own; the sadness, the regret. Don't go looking for me. For this world. For the answers for everything he couldn't understand. It wasn't a command, but a warning.

L feared he would be unable to adhere to it.

.

.

.

Harry returned him with little fanfare.

The strange space in time they inhabited gave way to the real world as effectively as they had entered into it; sudden, abrupt, and silent. He did not know how much time had passed, but the sky was clear and full of a thousand separate colors, seared by the sun. A sunset bled between the Tokyo skyline. It appeared to be the same as L had left it. This was the street corner just before their school.

As the world he felt he'd spent the last eternity in fell away to the world he remembered, he found he could not reconcile the two together. Absently, he wondered if he was dreaming.

Of course not, his mind supplied. He was having a severe case of sensory overload, was all.

He turned to Harry anyway, just to make sure.

Harry had turned, away, looking up into the sky as if he could fall into it. Maybe he could.

L studied the boy closely.

"And if I need to talk to you again?" L asked, as if picking up a thread from a prior conversation.

"I'll know." Harry replied, unwilling (or perhaps unable?) to remark further. L didn't know.

It appeared as if Harry had revealed himself of his own free will—but then, what was he doing in the first place? He seemed to have sided himself against Kira; but to what end? And that didn't necessarily mean he was on L's side, either. A third party, then, who had tipped his hand. And L still didn't know why. What gain did Harry have by telling him all this? Who _was _he?

L attempted valiantly to stop the frustration from taking hold of him. It wasn't working all that well.

He looked down, drawing a hand to his pocket. When it emerged, a notebook came with it. At the very sight of the leather-bound book it was as if the very breath was stolen from him, something cold taking its place. He knew intrinsically that this object was not of this world. Hopefully, this would serve him well when searching for Light Yagami's.

He opened it with no great reverence, as if this book did not hold the fate of perhaps everyone on this earth, and tore out a page, folding it neatly in thirds.

He held it out to L.

L made no move to take it, eyes drawing back to Harry. A pair of great green eyes returned his gaze. To think, he'd ever thought this boy as insignificant. That he'd thought him nothing but an unfortunate soul caught between he and Light. To think that he'd thought he was anything approaching human. He had mistaken the king for the pawn, as it were.

After some amount of time, L reached out to bridge the distance, clasping the note in his hand.

It was… just paper.

He thumbed it carefully, memorizing the texture. A chill ran down his spine, but he wondered if that was just perhaps the cold. There was nothing overtly interesting about a little scrap of notebook paper, thin wavering blue lines stretching across the plane of parchment.

"If you write my name down on that paper, it will call to me." Harry explained.

L looked up.

In that moment, he knew that it could very well be that he would never see Harry again. Tom Riddle would not show up to classes tomorrow—or ever again. This transient whose existence blooms and vanishes—being, nothingness, death, all insignificant—would perhaps never return. How was L to know?

In that moment, he knew he'd never get the chance to ask again.

"Why me?" He asked, with great finality.

Harry blinked, tilting his head ponderously. "Why anyone?" He countered, capricious. "Light Yagami was not chosen out of all humans, nor was Misa Amane. Nor were you."

Again, an answer which revealed nothing at all.

But then, Harry smiled. "Maybe I just have faith in you."

.

.

.

As L had predicted, Tom Riddle vanished into the ether, as if he had never been there at all.

But Harry Potter stepped out of the Floo with a cough, waving his wand to dispel the dust from the air as he looked around. His apartment looked sad and unused; an apt description, considering the last time he'd stepped foot in it. He could not reconcile the person who had once lived here to the person he was now, an unending distance separating the two.

There was no reason to go back to Tokyo, and yet, there was no reason to stay here.

He felt unequivocally lost and alone all at once.

Even as he wandered the streets of Diagon Alley, lost amongst the swift current of people, he could not feel a connection to them any longer. Many stopped to shake his hand, many more passed him with a smile. Normally this would make him feel marginally better about the world; now it only served to remind him of the distance between them.

He belonged to this world no longer. And yet the one he had now he was doing his level best to avoid.

"Harry? Oh, Harry! Hold on!"

He turned, blinking out of his thoughts and back into the foggy London morning.

Hermione tore her way out of a tangle of flowers from a horticulture stand nearby, a large and violent looking plant securely clasped in her arms.

"Hermione." He greeted with surprise. "Hello. How are you?"

"Oh, as well as I can be, I suppose." The plant made a move to bite her finger, and she absently swatted it down, keeping her attention on him. Her smile grew. "Oh—but how are you? It's been ages since I've seen you last! Honestly, where do you disappear to? Timbuktu?"

If only. Unfortunately he was not visiting places… so exotic.

He gave a cautious glance to the plant she settled onto her canted hip, as if it was a small child. "Are you sure you should be holding that?"

"What? This?" She looked down, laughing. "Don't worry about it. It's just a flesh-eating Shellblum. Neville asked me if I could hunt around for one."

"Perhaps he should have warned you to wear dragon tamer gloves." His brows raised passed his hairline.

She rolled her eyes. "Nevermind that!" She stepped closer, giving him as much of a one-armed hug as she could manage when she was attempting to keep him away from a hungry, carnivorous plant. "Harry, it's so good to see you!"

He smiled in response, returning the hug. "You too, Hermione." He said, with honesty. He'd missed her. It felt like a soothing balm to see her now, so unfettered by the world around them and all its problems.

"What are you up to right now? Because if you don't have anywhere you absolutely need to be, I'd love to catch up, I—" The plant bit her finger, and she broke off to, elbow it into submission. She continued her tangent as she did so; "feel like I haven't seen you in, why, a century maybe! What do you say? You know, there's a fantastic place in Muggle London that does great toasties. It's been so long since I've had any Muggle food… Ron refuses to go with me…"

"I'd love to." He grabbed the plant before it could make another move for her, whipping out his wand to conjure up a small cage. He took the plant from her hands and dropped it inside, spelling it shut. The space between the bars was too small for it to do anything but gnaw against them.

Hermione blinked, huffing. "Why didn't I think of that?"

He smiled up at her. "So. Toasties?"

Hermione's car could have been her spirit animal for all it embodied of her personality. Efficient, quiet, and pragmatic; also, incredibly nice to look at. He found himself toying with the radio as they waited through the grueling sludge of London traffic, suddenly struck by the novelty of it all. As he dove in and out of static, he found himself returning into some semblance of humanity. With Hermione by his side, scowling and cursing at the drivers around them, it was easy to remember what it was like to feel human. He could almost block out Death Gods, Death Notes, and Eternities.

"Harry!" Hermione moaned, bringing him out of his thoughts. "What are you doing? Turn this rubbish off!"

He suddenly realized he'd finally found a music station that was actually playing music. "Huh?"

"You're not a closeted One Direction fan, are you?"

"A what?"

But then she was darting her head out the open window. "Oh—look! Harry, jump out really quickly and save me that spot, would you?" She shooed him out, unlocking the doors. "I swear; parking in this city is practically a minor art form."

He dodged his way through the puddles and the ungodly amount of bikers in the bike lane, planting himself into the spot, much to the ire of a small Fiat that had been attempting to turn into it.

Hermione paralleled into the spot in the most frightening way imaginable, before she cut the engine off and opened the door with a sunny smile. "Merlin Harry, how long has it been since we've been out for lunch? A few weeks?"

Harry shrugged. "A month, at most." He allowed.

She closed the door, locking the car with one last look at the plant in the back. It appeared marginally more subdued without any flesh to eat around it.

"At least in here we won't be running into any Malfoys."

Harry chuckled at that, imagining Draco Malfoy seating himself in the lounge of a Muggle restaurant.

Sitting across from Hermione—who had imperiously begun to list off a set of entrees, but not without interrogating the waitress on what kind of oil they were cooking it in—was a vastly different experience than sitting across from L Lawliet. For one, he did not feel as if his company was attempting to pick out all of his secrets from his posture alone. For another, L was… different.

Harry still didn't know what to make of him.

But he meant what he'd said. He had faith in L; that the man would be able to bring Kira to justice.

So dining with Hermione was much different than having tea with L—still, they both turned to be almost unbearably uncomfortable.

"She's doing good, or well as good as you can imagine." Hermione was saying, on the subject of Ginny and Dean's recent breakup.

Harry nodded absently. "And George?"

Hermione sighed. "He's… well. He seemed fine at dinner a few weeks back. He's just… he's different." But they both knew that. George had not played a single prank since Fred's death. It was difficult to even hear him crack a joke.

"You and Ron?"

Hermione harrumphed. "Next question."

Harry smiled slightly. It seemed Hermione and Ron would forever be fighting about something, whether they were together or not. He could easily imagine the two of them grown old, still continuing to yell at each other even when they're hearing had gone senile.

The thought sobered him. Hermione and Ron, and everyone else he knew would age, would grow old and live fulfilling lives. He had no idea if he was even capable of that anymore.

"But how about _you, _Harry? What have _you _been up to?"

He shrugged, uneasily. He knew this question was coming, but he still hadn't figured out an acceptable answer. "Oh… I've been around."

Hermione gave him a look that clearly said how unimpressed she was by such a lacking response.

"I—I've taken up some classes."

"Oh?" This had clearly piqued her interest. "Classes? What kind of classes?"

"Muggle classes." He replied, toying with the wrapper of his straw. "At Uni."

"Harry!" She marveled, clapping her hands. "Why, that's wonderful! What kind of classes?"

"Just some stuff on criminology." He hedged. "I find it… fascinating."

"Criminology?" She echoed. "So are you still planning to be an Auror, then?"

He shook his head. "Not really, no."

She smiled. "Well, I'm glad you're furthering your education, anyway. I'd love to go back to school—I was thinking about muggle school too, you know. Political Science. Not everything relates well to the Wizarding government, or even my current employment, but I still find it fascinating and relevant information."

"That'd probably be wise." Harry agreed, solemnly. "Someone should at least know what they're doing in there."

She giggled lightly at that. "Yes, well." And then her face went pinched. "Believe it or not, Malfoy actually appears to have the capacity to string together intelligent thought."

"Really?"

At this, she turned mutinous. "But he's still a pompous prat." She added. "And he can suck on a toad for all I care."

After a moment, she sighed, stirring her tea. "That said, he does appear to be the only one in the House of Lords to have any modicum of good sense. The whole lot of them are utterly useless, you know. Most of the Family seats are gone, re-allocated, or in stasis with their owners locked up in Azkaban."

A total cluster fuck then, as always.

They fell silent as their food came, though Harry could not quite call it comfortable. Hermione picked up the chatter as she devoured her sandwich and Harry picked lightly at his food, but it felt halfhearted at best.

She fell silent some time after they were polishing off their crisps, a far-off look to her eyes as she gazed out the open window. Muggle London was, predictably, foggy and miserable.

"I feel like we've grown so far apart." Hermione confessed, all at once. It took Harry a moment to process all the words falling out of her mouth.

When he did, he found himself unable to deny it.

"You've been acting rather strange… are you sure you're okay?" She started again, concern pinching at the corners of her mouth.

He looked back at her, suddenly overwhelmed. He wanted to explain everything to her; wanted her to understand how false this world was; fatuous superficiality cast like a cloying skin upon humanity. Hermione would know what to do. Maybe she could even offer him some modicum of advice. She would, above all else, be supportive. Harry found himself longing for that semblance of comfort, slight as it was.

But he couldn't do that to her.

Burden her with all he had to hide.

He could imagine her; first with astonishment, then enthusiasm, before finally her determination burned away to reveal what he had come to realize; that perhaps there was no great secret to magic and life, to the wonders of the world, to existence.

"I have." He agreed. "I haven't been… having a particularly easy time of things."

"I imagine." She laughed, devoid of humor. Still, the smile playing upon her face was genuine "You're gone for weeks on end, only stopping by a moment or two."

Harry frowned, staring pensively into his hands.

He looked up. "Have I changed, Hermione?"

Her look turned curious. "Yes." She answered without missing a beat. And then, "But so have we all. "

He felt stuck in the same place. And yet, he'd become a person he didn't recognize anymore.

"You have changed, Harry." Hermione whispered, soft, like a secret. "But that's not a bad thing."

He swallowed, unable to form a response.

"And that doesn't necessarily mean you need to leave." She continued on, brows furrowing. "Is that why you've been going… to wherever you disappear to?"

"Sort of." He hedged. It was difficult to explain that the reason he had been kipping out of town so often was the fact that he had somehow inherited the throne of the Death King. "It's not that I _feel_ I need to leave… but rather that I feel like I don't belong here anymore."

"Harry, that's nonsense!" She exclaimed, grabbing for his hand on the table to squeeze it reassuringly. It felt so different than Light Yagami's touch; infinitely warmer. "You'll always belong here!"

She paused, slightly. "Well, I can understand why you'd think that; with the Wizarding World at any rate… and, well, you're place in it. I can't imagine what it's like."

"Tedious." Lonely. Everyone revered him; expected great things from him. And there were some who saw further; could connect him to another great and powerful wizard. Terrible, but great.

She gave him a wan smile. "Yes, I could see how. But I didn't mean here as in the Wizarding World… or London, or any place." She gripped his hand tighter. "I meant _here._ With _us. _Me, and Ron, and Gin."

Harry let out a long breath.

It was… infinitely reassuring to hear her say that, and know in his heart she was right. He could feel the whisper of the Shinigami realm, dark and cold in the very calendar of his bones, but around it was a strange sense of repose; calm and constellated and resonating from the thread of their fingers.

"Yeah." He agreed at length. "Yeah, it is."

.

.

.

Tom Riddle did not show up for his 8 am Criminology class.

But he did show up to the Misa Amane photoshoot.

He appeared both unremarkable and completely unexceptional in every way, aside from how each and every one of L's nerves seemed to light with fire when his eyes drifted towards the figure in the corner. He could perhaps be mistaken for a cameraman, or a set extra—for a _human_. He wore a plaid shirt thrown over a standard looking gray hoodie, jeans and a pair of rather stylish black trainers. Perhaps not a set extra then. Maybe more like the leading male model.

At any rate he looked wholly pedestrian and uninspiring, lounging against a crate full of set supplies. L knew without a doubt that Harry was aware of L's place in the shadows, though the boy did not acknowledge him. L wondered why he could feel him when he, for all intent purposes, had no otherworldly capacities to speak of. His hand slid into his pocket, where a small scarp of paper lay.

Well, that may be slightly untrue.

He found himself slipping through the crowds of workers, dodging around the lights and the bright, galactic center of the set where Misa Amane lay draped over an ornate chaise lounge.

Harry still did not turn to look at him, his eyes fixated into some indeterminable point in the distance.

It was only until L approached his small silent bubble of space that his eyes flickered away from their fixation, and towards him.

As L had predicted, he was not at all surprised to see the detective here.

"Hello." He greeted, as charming and effervescent as before, when he had been masquerading as a young student. L wondered just how much of it was a ruse. "Did you come to see the show?"

"Not unless you plan on creating one, no." He answered, bland.

Harry's lips tilted upwards, just slightly. "I had no intentions of one."

"Then I suppose I shall simply have to find other ways of entertainment."

"It must be Misa, then." Harry hummed. "That you're here for. Why?"

"Gathering information."

"Do you always do it personally?"

"Not always."

He hummed again.

But since the moment Harry had emerged in the room all his attention had diverted from the model and her secrets and onto this enigmatic boy. It was impossible not to. The Death Note and the humans who used it were a fascinating puzzle to solve indeed, especially with the added challenge of not having one of his own, or any capability to see the Shinigami that accompanied them. However, no puzzle was ever as fascinating as the one Harry presented.

"Death King." He began suddenly. "Will you tell me what it means?"

"No." Harry looked away, a slight curve to his mouth. L wondered if perhaps he drew amusement from withholding information.

"Are you a Shinigami?"

"Does this have any relevancy to your current case?" He rebuked.

"Do you work for them, then?" He pressed on, ignoring the question.

He did not give Harry time to reply, mind thinking a mile a minute. "You told me before that I should not question who you work for, but who works for _you."_ He thought aloud. His eyes narrowed. "Who works for you?"

Harry did not reply; his gaze had attention had once more transfixed itself upon the set before them. It was as if the silence was imploring L to figure it out.

"I could kill them, you know." He confessed, no significant inflection to his voice. "With the Death Note, it's so very easy. There's nothing particularly intimate about it, or personal; it's neither cruel nor empathetic."

L's eyes slid to away from the shoot and back to the boy. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Have you ever killed someone before, L?"

"No." He answered immediately.

He smiled, vacuous and hollow, and did not reply for some time. Finally after long moments of only the shouts of the crew and the cameramen to disrupt the silence he began again, as if on a completely different tangent. "If I killed them, there would be no justice. They would neither be charged nor brought to light; all the families of the ones they've killed would never know the truth."

The detective fell silent.

"And you're counting on me to somehow find a way to bring them to justice?" He asked, at length.

"Yes." And then he turned serious. "But you can't if you're dead. It was incredibly dangerous of you to come here."

He gave pause at that, taken by surprise. "Why—

"Misa Amane has the _eyes_." He explained, with no small amount of concern. For L? "The Shinigami eyes. They reveal both the real name and lifespan of any human."

He sucked in a breath, turning wildly to the girl on the couch. She did not appear to be paying them any attention—or capable of any attention span at all. She fluffed her hair and pouted into the camera, much to the pleasure of the director. L snorted. Unless being used as a ploy by Light, he doubted he had much to worry about from her. She could probably see his name and then completely forget in a moment or two. Still, having the ability to see his name at all was mildly concerning. He had conjectured that there was some importance on the name and identity in conjunction with how Kira kills, but he could have never expected how far that went.

"How did she get them?"

"She made a deal with a Death God."

A death god. This gave L pause. "There's one here, then? The true owner of the note?"

Harry nodded. "But the Shinigami wouldn't dare to try anything against me." This only served to pique L's curiosity further. "And Misa can't, either." He turned to L. "Not while I'm here, at any rate. But I won't always be, so I would stay out of her line of sight as much as possible from now on."

Unheeded by his caution, L leapt at the chance to divulge more information on the boy. "What do you mean by that? Do her eyes not work in your presence?"

Harry's expression was conflicted. "It means I'm shielding you from her gaze." He said, carefully.

"How?"

It was painfully obvious that Harry was capable of amazing feats that he refused to expand upon. As it was, it looked unlikely that Harry would answer him, so L turned back to the scraps of information he did know; Harry was the 'Death King'; he was capable of stopping the Shinigami Eyes from working; he, like all Shinigami, could kill humans with a thought and a penstroke.

"How do you have the power to do that?" He pressed further, hoping perhaps a change of tact may serve him better.

The answer was not what he expected.

"Because I was foolish." That smile again; small and hollow, as if devoid of all the vivacity in the world. "And unfortunate."

.

.

.


	11. Teeth

_This chapter owes its existence to Uverworld, mainly because of their song Revers. I didn't like it at first, but then it grew on me I suppose. Actually, that mostly goes out to*broken handed and *joneh adam, who managed to inspire me to write this in a matter of days - totally distracting me from my Tom/Harry series! _

_Uh, for anyone who didn't read the tags… this is tagged as drama and romance, between L and Harry. I don't entirely blame you, the ffnet tag system is abysmally disappointing in comparison to the far more detailed one of ao3—but still. This is entirely slash; so if it reads like slash… that's because it is slash._

* * *

><p>Turned out that he worried over nothing—Harry never seemed to be all that hard to find. Perhaps that was a conscious effort on his part, though.<p>

"I feel like I told you not to do this," came an amused voice from his left.

L did not look up; it doesn't take a genius to know who it was. Not to mention that he doubted he could ever forget whom that voice belonged to. It seemed forever ingrained in his memory, carrying over a dreary gray sky, shimmering water and haunting, virescent eyes.

"They can't see me," was L's immediate response.

This is true. Misa and Light were on the opposite side of the wall of the restaurant. They can't see L. L can see them though, because he has (predictably) wired the whole place up to watch it through his laptop. He has made himself comfortable in the far back, far removed from the other patrons; around him are at least half a dozen empty tea cups and empty plates, all orbiting around the enormous laptop perched atop the table.

An entirely uninteresting form hovered beside him—uninteresting aside from the luminous burning eyes that peered down at him, unreadable and dispossessed. L chanced a glance at the other boy, dressed in what L was quickly beginning to note was his favored fashion; tragically trendy.

"For now." Harry pointed out, ominous. His knit hat slipped from the top of his head, revealing wisps of dark curls. For some reason, L sees them and sees dark feathers, a shivering halo surrounding him, and inky wings, wrapped around him as an overpowering, ineluctable force.

"What if one of them turns the corner?"

"Why would they do that?" L replied, completely unconcerned, shaking himself away from the visage. "The bathrooms are directly next to them, and this turn is a dead end. They have no reason to."

Harry made a noncommittal noise.

Much to L's distinct displeasure, Harry was correct.

Apparently the other side was far too crowded—and incidentally full of Misa Amane fans, all intent on pestering her until she relented to sign all their paraphernalia. So the pair asked for a table in the back, far secluded from everyone else. And on the far side of the room from L.

Harry laughed.

L scowled.

The brunette took a seat, clearly intending to stay. L hadn't forgotten his ambiguous explanation as to why Misa Amane's 'eyes' wouldn't work: he was blocking them, he had said. Of course, he hadn't explained how—or why, for that matter. All the same, the other two sat down with little fanfare, and though L felt a prickle of trepidation when Misa gave a cursory glance their way, there did not appear to be any reason for his concern. Crisis averted, then. Well, the danger was averted; this did not deter Light Yagami from wandering over anyhow.

L brought up another inconspicuous screen, peering up at the other boy with a curious expression of indifference. Harry turned around, smiling. L noted that it appeared strained and nebulous.

"Tom!" Light exclaimed jovially, actually moving to hug the other boy.

Harry returned it with a laudable look of repose. "Light—Hi, how are you?"

Light gave a pleasant laugh; "Ah, well, as well as I can be—what with finals and all. Speaking of, I haven't seen you in class lately! What have you been up to?"

"Dropped out," replied Harry smoothly, a slow and easy smile upon his face. "My folks weren't too happy with my GPA last year… told me I either get a job or shape up." L eyed him critically; the both of them, actually. They both lied so fluidly, masters in the craft.

Harry had the upper-hand, of course. It was clear Light still saw him as a simple pawn to discard. Though there was a glint in the handsome boy's eyes, which suggested that perhaps he had a use for this young, gullible student. L wondered if Harry would simply allow him to attempt it—isn't that what he had been doing the whole time? Allowing both Light and L to assume they had control, that they were the ones moving the pieces and pawns, when it was clear Harry had been the removed and watchful king the entire time?

"So I'm assuming the job won out?" Light clarified, teasingly.

"Yeah, it's good though. I don't mind, better than pretending I could take the L-SATs, you know?" Harry replied, good-natured as ever.

The two shared a laugh at that, small talk dying down as Light bid his farewell to the both of them, excusing himself to attend to his 'girlfriend'. It was an obvious lie, but you couldn't tell from her expression; she was clearly unaccustomed to being anything but the center of attention.

There was a beat of silence, as a waitress came over to take their orders. L just asked for a refill on his tea—Harry actually ordered a full meal.

When L spared him a glance, he shrugged. "I'm hungry." Was his only explanation.

He returned his attention to his computer, tabbing through security camera feeds until he found the one situated just above him, and focused it onto the table behind Harry's shoulder.

The problem with Light though was that his whole life was a façade. Every smile and laugh, the slight tilt of his head as he brushed bangs out of his face, the charming wit—it was all a well-crafted fallacy. He'd made deception into an art form. It was utterly impossible to read anything into him; it was all a lie. Misa was a bit easier, though without much context she wasn't all that much better. She could be up to something; or alternatively, she could really be that stupid. It was hard to say.

He sighed, assuming he'd have to find another way to lure the two of them into making a mistake, or revealing anything at all.

Another moment; Harry's food arrived.

"He's confused," Harry broke through his thoughts.

L looked up, mind shifting as he took in the other boy's words. His gaze darted quickly to the table behind Harry; for all intent purposes, they looked like a vapid couple in love.

"That Misa can't see you," he added. "He doesn't know what to make of it."

Harry paused for a moment, before he started snickering. L found himself marveling at the small, almost insignificant smile on his lips.

L's brows knitted. "What?" He frowned. He was never a fan of being imperceptive of things—with Harry, it seemed to happen all the time.

"Nothing," Harry shook his head. "He's just—trying to figure it out."

"Could he?"

"No." Then, snorting, "And it's not like Ryuk could tell him."

"Ryuk?" L repeated. "Who is Ryuk?"

Harry's gaze flittered up—L realized too late that the overpowering eyes weren't focused on him at all.

"That would be me," a guttural voice cleared it's throat next to him.

In L's defense, he gave a laudable effort not to make any outward distinction that he'd heard the voice at all. He congratulated himself on that; it took a supreme amount of effort to curb the onslaught of utter, terrified surprise that swelled within him when his gaze flickered onto the character in question.

He (was it a he?) chortled at his inherent terror, wafting over to perch himself over Harry's chair, blinking at L with enormous, sunglowing eyes. L met his gaze unerringly. The macabre figure drenched in a piceous darkness, wings spread around him as sharp sessile pikes, draped over the boy's shoulders. He looked like quite the picture: Harry, settled beneath him in a disinterested state of repose, even more so.

"Did he send you here?" Harry murmured, not even sparing the creature a glance.

"Yep." Ryuk affirmed.

An amused look crossed Harry's face. "You spend far too much time deriving entertainment from him."

"Isn't that the whole point of him?" Ryuk cocked his head to the side. "Entertainment?"

He turned his enormous yellow eyes towards L again. "Although if we're going with the entertainment factor… I have to say, I think you might have gotten the better bargain, Harry."

Harry seemed far too interested in fiddling with his chopsticks to reply.

Ryuk careened over towards him with a suddenness that almost made him jump. "I like this one," he confided to the Death King; so close to L's face he felt as if he could perhaps feel his cankerous breath.

"Oh, Ryuk," Harry harrumphed, as if scolding a young child. "Stop bothering him."

Ryuk, as most small children are prone to do, did not listen in the slightest. He grinned winsomely before he lurched forward, snapping his jaw in front of L's face. This most definitely startled a reaction out of him; in his defense, it would have startled a reaction out of anyone. Ryuk was not exactly a pretty sight—and for that matter, neither were his teeth.

"Ryuk," Harry said, sharply.

And then the creature was gone, returning to a polite distance and pouting mutinously. Still, he did not attempt it again, even when it was clear he was not done having his fun with the young detective. Though he certainly had a mouth on him, and an alarming lack of respect for anything, he did not go against Harry's words.

Curious, that.

He flipped around in the air, before gliding back towards the other table, upside-down. Ah. Like Harry, it was fairly clear to see that the laws of physics did not pertain to him either.

L wasn't all that concerned about it, though. Surprisingly, he wasn't even all that concerned with the Kira case.

He had far more pressing questions at the forefront of his mind.

"The people who work for you," L began, as if picking up on a stich of conversation they'd dropped. "They're the Death Gods."

It wasn't a question, but a statement.

He turned his accusing gaze to Harry: Harry blinked back, peering up at him as he made a mess of his noodles.

The other boy straightened up, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Well, 'working' is perhaps too succinct a term," he replied, wryly. "Not much working is actually involved."

L waited for an elaboration.

It didn't come.

He tried not to hide his distinct satisfaction with that. Harry was so very curious, but he didn't appear all that interested in satisfying L's curiosity. The boy had returned his attention towards his food.

"You shouldn't go near them again," He advised, not looking up. "Her, especially."

L blinked, before his eyes narrowed. This reminded him…

"Does she have a Shinigami?" It would make logical sense. After all, Light had one, and there was a Death God for every Death Note. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to assume Misa had one too.

"Yes." Harry replied.

His gaze narrowed further. "Why can't I see it?"

Harry looked up then, phosphorescent eyes entirely unreadable.

"Because I don't want you to."

This gave L pause. "You can control that?" Another question that sounded far more like a statement.

Harry made a noncommittal noise.

L frowned. "Is there anything you _can't_ control?"

"Yes—pretty much everything." Harry quipped back immediately. He scowled down at his noodles. "Why do they always put these in? I hate cilantro." Harry whined, as if they were not talking about his strange ability to control the universe around them.

"You know, I don't think you've actually answered any of my questions." L noted, exasperated.

"And I probably never will," Harry agreed, solemn.

L felt a small sting of annoyance at that. There were few things in life that he detested more than a lack of knowledge. But his irritation soon faded when he caught sight of Harry's expression; nebulous and saturnine, and full of regret.

"Maybe you're better off not knowing." Harry mused, quiet.

L found he had no response to that.

.

.

.

His small mishap with his spying not withstanding, he was actually making some marginal amount of progress on this case. Well he was, when he had the willpower to make himself think on it.

L rubbed his temples, reminding himself that there was a mass murderer out there who had already collected hundreds of victims, who had an object of such infinite power it could hardly seem possible. Incidentally, this was his dream come true. A case so challenging it defied the rules of physics and reality itself.

But it was so very difficult to focus on the case when there was a far more fascinating alternative.

So maybe Tom Riddle did not show up for their next class—or any class after that, for that matter. But to that end, neither did L or Light. They were far passed that stage, it seemed.

The game had changed; both sides were armed against the other, with more machinations, plots and schemes than L had ever had to make before. Perhaps he truly did secretly relish the challenge. He didn't think anyone had ever given as much difficulty as Light Yagami.

He could admit—privately—that the boy might have even been able to best him, had Harry not tipped his hand.

Armed with nothing but a scrap of paper, a better understanding and a vague explanation, L embarked on his latest plot to arrest _and_ convict both Light and Misa. The task grew more difficult when Misa threw a fit in confusion, taking a complete one-eighty from what she had been like before. When Light did the same, L found himself both suspicious and curious. Altering memories did not seem all that strange, when there was an enigmatic and indomitable Death King, and Death Gods that wander the worlds with their notes.

Still, it's not something he could deduce on his own—not without confirmation, at any rate.

But finding Harry proved to be a task indeed, especially when it seems that the boy has left the face of the earth.

L frowned. For all intent purposes, he _may_ have actually left the earth.

He wondered where he went, in the spaces of time that L didn't see him. The worlds he conjured were vast and far too imaginative for him; L had never been one for fantasies. He preferred facts. But when facts were out of reach, he supposed he'd simply have to work with whatever sparse creativity he might have left in him.

He has a small, carefully folded square of paper, but he doesn't know if he wished to use it.

In the end, he doesn't have to.

Harry stood stalactite still at the bottom of an endless, wicked sky. Gloom thickened about his feet; tumultuous clouds thundered above him. In that moment, L could see him as he must truly be—something strange and inhuman; unconquerable and insurmountable. Something far too beautiful to belong to this earth.

He turned, then, a profile thrown in a blinding white light, crossed beneath the stratosphere. The wind whipped past them, unfettered with such closeness to the sky, wild and untamed. Much like the boy before him.

The Death King turned around: something strikingly inhuman flickers in his eyes, before they return to their normal unnatural viridity.

"Hullo," he greeted. It only served to remind him that this creature before him made absolutely no sense; how could he be so far removed from this world, yet still be so human? Human enough to carry the slight lilt of a familiar accent, human enough to smile like that, facile, and full of avidity?

"I was looking for you," L said in response, deciding to cut through the formalities.

Harry raised a brow. "Oh?"

L couldn't tell if he was truly surprised, or simply humoring him. Honestly, he was beginning to make his peace with the fact that he would never truly be able to unravel Harry. Maybe Harry was right, though.

Maybe that was for the best.

"Light and Misa," he began. "What happened to them?"

Whatever slight, enchanting vivacity lit upon his face fell away at that, leaving a lacinated expression that was no less enchanting.

Harry turned his attention to the sprawling metropolis below them. The city looked bleak and despondent, tormented by some indeterminable sadness.

"They denounced ownership of their Death Notes."

L remained silent for a moment, blinking rapidly. "They can do that?"

Harry hummed. "I guess so."

_You didn't know?_ L wanted to ask, but the question didn't quite manage to bubble to the surface.

"Why?" He asked instead.

Harry made a noncommittal noise. "Ryuk said it was one of Light's elaborate plots to throw you off."

"It was working," L agreed. He paused. "It would have, had I not already known about the death note."

Harry made a small noise of that could have meant anything, looking lost in thought. And then, as if he had heard L's unvoiced question, "I know far less about the death note than you seem to think of I do."

This only led to more questions. Are you not the Death King? And also; What is the Death King? Harry clearly held supreme reign over the Death Gods, which L had assumed were indomitable in and of themselves. But even still, after spending so much time in the boy's presence, he couldn't quite reconcile the Harry before him and this lionized idea of the invulnerable Death King, omniscient and omnipotent.

There were certainly times in which he seemed to hold the title quite well; yet there were far more moments in which it seemed to fit him as a garment too large. Uncomfortable, like a cloying second skin.

After a long beat of quiet, Harry turned to him, something appraising and mirthful in his eyes.

"You know," he began, quiet, eyes lit with a wicked glow. "I had sort of thought you to be rather disagreeable."

This was not what L had expected him to say. He'd assumed that whatever opinion Harry had of him, he would continue to keep it to himself. As always, Harry was constantly going against what he thought he had already deduced.

"Did you?" He replied, deciding to humor him.

"Oh yes," Harry agreed. "You make for far better company than I had thought you would."

"And you, far more infuriating." L conceded.

He laughed—but still, Harry's expression was difficult to read; capricious and mercurial, much like the boy himself. "I'm sure I'm a great source of consternation for you," enthused the death king, seeming rather unrepentant about it.

_You are_, L agreed, silent. Irritating, pertinacious, constantly surprising him, completely unpredictable; he was utterly bewitching. He would ruin him in enrapture, L knew, if he wasn't careful.

But he had already been careless.

.

.

.

It did not seem to be his intention, but L had brought up a curious point nonetheless.

Harry did not get angry. All the same, he glowered out into the distance.

"So I can do pretty much anything," he started, slow and volcanic, "except for what I _actually_ want to do?"

"Well when you put it like that…" Justin shifted uneasily.

From his usual perch amongst the broken sky and painted glass, Grindelwald laughed—and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Harry was tempted to throw an unforgiveable at him. Or he would have been, if he was the kind of person who casually crucio'd his followers. He liked to lie to himself and think he didn't share all that many similarities with that person, though.

When it became clear that holders of the death note could relinquish their ownership of them, Harry wondered why it wasn't possible for him to just collect them himself. Just because they were bonded to the humans clearly didn't mean they were forever tied together. And Harry could take death notes away from his servants, if he actually wanted to do so. Many of them returned death notes to him as well, so there did seem to be some leniency in their ownership.

Aside from the fact that apparently he couldn't retrieve the stupid books from earth.

Because earth wasn't his; not like the Shinigami realm was.

It was different with him: he was Death King, and not only that, but he had been born a human, a native of the land of the living. He was more than capable of transitioning through worlds. He was the only one, though. Aside from Shinigami who had dropped their notes, or Shinigami that he summoned personally, no Death Gods could wander into the realm of the living—perhaps not even the Death King.

Harry wrenched out his own death note, flipping to the pages of laws and regulations.

"Once a death note is in the human world it becomes property of the human world," he read aloud, irascible.

He snapped the book shut. "That's a rule; a rule written in the death notes. I thought I was allowed to change all of those."

"Yes, you are," Justin nodded, nervously wringing his jingling bracelets. "But, well, the human world is not technically considered your domain…"

Harry blinked, scowling. "Then whose domain is it?"

"Well I've no idea." Justin admitted. "…No one, I suppose."

Harry harrumphed. "Well that's just fantastic."

The wizard at the window made a thoughtful sound.

Both Harry and Justin turned towards him.

"Who's to say there isn't one?" Riposted Grindelwald.

"Isn't one what?" Harry returned, unwillingly curious.

"A Living King." He relayed. "There's a Death King, no? Who's to say there isn't a Living King? That wouldn't be all that strange, considering _you_ exist."

Harry frowned pensively.

"I guess that makes sense," Or at least, it made about as much sense as anything else in this absurd world did. "But how are we to know?"

"I've never heard of any such king," Justin offered meekly.

Grindelwald chortled, meanly. "As if that means much." Justin protested, taking great offense.

Harry ignored him. "Yes, perhaps there is one: how am I to find that out?" Harry replied, genuinely confused.

"You're the death king, are you not?"

"As if that means anything." Harry snorted. "It's not as if this job came with a manual."

"You know, if you were truly so altruistic as you make yourself out to be, you would make one for your successor," Grindelwald laughed.

"If I was truly so altruistic," Harry retorted, "I would spare everyone else the fate of ever having to be the Death King, and keep my post for eternity."

"Unfortunately for you, you may actually just be that altruistic."

Harry didn't think any half-hearted denials would do him much good, so he remained silent and mutinous.

"On the subject of successors," Grindelwald segued smoothly, "there may be a person who can give you the answers you seek."

Harry threw him a wary glance. "Who, you?"

"Of course not." The wizard chortled.

"Then who?"

"The old man, of course." He replied, cheerily.

"The old man," Harry repeated. And then, blinking. "Oh. _Oh."_

For Harry is indubitably the Death King, however unfortunate a fate it may be. But he was not the first—and perhaps he won't even be the last.

Harry gave a great capitulation. "And how am I to find him, exactly?"

Grindelwald only smiled. "I think you already know the answer to that."

.

.

.

This high above the world, he felt alien and ambulant, as if he could perhaps wander his way in and out of existence. Looking down upon the realm of death, and further, towards the realm of humans, he could almost believe it. Maybe time and space didn't really exist at all.

Harry smiled hollowly, raising a hand.

An umbrageous servant cloaked in gloom emerged from the darkness at his feet. Ryuk might like to say he was his favorite—but his most favored (and most reliable) was undoubtedly Deridovely.

"My King," intoned the Shinigami, his tattered cloak melding around him as dripping shadow. "How may I serve you?"

Harry tossed him an amused look, forever resigned to be the unhappy subject of such reverent servitude. It could be worse, he supposed. They could all be like Ryuk; unrepentant, unapologetic assholes.

"I have a favor to ask of you."

"Ask away."

"There's a boy down there," he motioned vaguely to the sprawling, empty world around them, and to the effervescent world below. "I want you to look after him while I'm gone."

Deridovely shifted, "Of course." It appeared they both knew exactly who he was referring to.

"How long will you be gone?"

"I've no idea yet," Harry returned, in a quiet murmur, his eyes still fixated towards something in the distance, of which he looks upon with an infinite sadness.

The Death God nodded, adjusting his scythe across his shoulder. The glimmering metal caught against the sun in a blinding streak of gold.

"Where are you going?"

"To hell."

.

.

.

"This isn't hell," Harry noted, exasperated. "This is a train station."

This was the foregone conclusion, though. A very familiar station indeed. But of course it was very familiar: Harry had been here before.

Harry had _died _before.

"Considering how long I've been waiting here for this stupid thing," came a voice to his left, as if drifting through deep, submerged waters, "it may as well be hell."

Harry blinked into the indeterminable world around him, before turning towards the voice. He was not at all surprised to see a familiar figure leaning casually against one of the benches.

"Tom," he greeted, resigned.

"Harry," Tom smiled. "How kind of you to finally join me."

"Incidentally, I'm not actually here for you."

"Well that's unfortunate." He shrugged. "It's rather boring here."

"You did this to yourself." Harry pointed out, completely unsympathetic. "No one told you to shred your soul into pieces. What exactly did you think would happen after you died if your soul was torn to pieces?"

"The whole point of splitting one's soul into objects is to avoid death." Tom noted, wryly.

It wasn't all that strange to see the strikingly handsome features of Tom Riddle glancing upon him, the man himself sprawled elegantly in this not-world of heaven and hell. What _was_ strange was how… unsurprised he was. How natural it felt to turn around and see him there; to converse with him, as if they were intimate friends.

He felt a twinge in his scar.

But then, perhaps it was not all that strange at all.

"It never really left, you know," Harry said, after some time simply regarding the other boy in silence.

Lord Voldemort appraised him, unreadable. "I know." He replied, at length.

_So why didn't you return? _Lingered at the tip of his tongue.

Maybe he didn't really want to know the answer. More to the point—Lord Voldemort did not appear to be in the mood to entertain his questions; or to answer them, for that matter. A maundering silence held fast between them, an infinite distance that left him feeling as if he stood right beside him, sharing the same space in air. He spent almost the entirety of his life running from this man; fighting him, cursing him, _killing_ him.

But this was all for nothing.

You can't run from yourself.

"I hate you," Harry confided, quietly. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to remind him of this, and then promptly sit down beside him. It would have angered him, once upon a time—how easily they seemed to fit together. How he could feel a comfort and ease with this man that he had never been able to achieve with anyone else.

Tom observed him, just as quiet. "It'd be a very strange thing if you didn't." He noted.

They looked out upon the train station together, lost once more in a quiescent equanimity. But that was okay; there was nothing left to say. There was nothing left between them but an empty, vacuous soul; two halves of the same form and nature. Harry did not think about anything for an eternity or two, it was so easy to wander away here, so easy to forget yourself in this vast nothingness. It was awful, actually, but far less awful than the idea of forever being tied to the world of living.

"You know which way to go, don't you?" Harry turned to him, suddenly fixated upon all the green in his eyes.

"Yes," Lord Voldemort said; he appeared just as fixated on the red in Harry's, but not all that interested in elaborating.

If Tom wasn't going to tell him, Harry was simply going to choose a direction and walk. After all, it wasn't as if there were many choices—left or right. When it became clear the dark lord did not intend to enlighten him, Harry stood once more, walking towards the edge of the platform. Both sides stretched into something endless; it was impossible to tell which way to go. He shrugged. Well, when it doubt, it is always best to follow your nose.

Lord Voldemort laughed. Harry should not have been all that shocked that they could share the same thoughts as well as the same soul.

"You're concerns are amusing, but ultimately worthless," he remarked with amusement, tilting his head slightly to his right. "The next train to hell is arriving."

Harry would have found that funny, if it wasn't completely and utterly true. A very plain and unremarkable locomotive pulled into the station. On it were equally plain and unremarkable faces. Harry glanced back towards the boy on the platform; though he had complained about waiting for this train forever, it was clear he wasn't going to board. But perhaps this should have been obvious: he will never board this train. He will never be able to. Harry spared him an indecipherable glance, that was matched by the same knowing, perceptive gaze, before he stepped on. There was no fee for the train to eternal purgatory: Harry wasn't sure if this was because everyone had already paid with their souls, or because he was the death king, and had some kind of immunity. Most likely it was both.

Arriving to hell took not time at all—but then again, Harry's perceptive of time seemed exceedingly warped every since he'd found himself in the world of the dead once again.

There were many depictions of hell, throughout all the centuries and all the societies that had lived upon the earth—some more illustrious than others. Some conjured worlds of fire and brimstone, of great and evil monsters of the deep. Some were peaceful and eternal, a continuous cycle. Some were simply bizarre.

All of them were wrong.

Harry walked up the driveway of Number 4 Privet Drive, in a far more pleasant mood than he should have been, considering the circumstances.

But of course hell would be Number 4 Privet Drive. Where else would it be?

"You must be the 'old man'," Harry greeted, dryly, as he opened the door.

As expected, a strange, omniscient creature greeted him inside. He appeared to be made of thousands of things, all congealed together into something indiscernible; aside from his head, which vaguely resembled a skull. Harry squinted. A goat skull, maybe. Or a ram, it was hard to say.

"A longhorn sheep," answered the immortal king of death.

Harry blinked. "Huh. Wouldn't have guessed that."

The longhorn sheep skull snorted. "Well yes, you're not supposed to. Stop dawdling and close the door."

Harry did as asked, seating himself in his bed in the cupboard under the stairs. The king of death joined him, a cloying, cold darkness wrapping around the room until all of it was lost in obscurity.

"Why me?" Harry asked at once; a question he had been contemplating since… since perhaps the day he met Ryuk, all those years ago.

"Why you, out of all other humans?" Extrapolated the skull.

"Yes."

"I don't really know," confessed the king of death, with an air of indifference. "You brought that on yourself."

Harry sighed. "Yeah. I sort of figured that was the answer." Even Tom Riddle seemed to have been handed out a better fate than him. At least he had somewhat made it into nirvana; Harry was forever stuck in the unfortunate and disappointing world of the living. Well, he consoled himself, at least he wasn't alone. Grindelwald certainly had it just as bad. But then, Grindelwald didn't seem to actually mind.

"You didn't come all this way to ask me a question you already knew the answer to." The king of death pointed out.

There were a great number of things Harry could have asked then. Had he been a more curious person, he would have asked all about the world they were residing in; about the intricacies and principles of both heaven and hell; about the train station tying the crossing roads together; why the Hallows were on earth at all. But time had long since taught him that curiosity is perhaps the most dangerous of all thoughts.

"How do I retrieve a death note from the world of the living?" He asked instead: his intended question. The one he wandered all this way to seek.

"You don't."

"And why not?" Harry scowled. "I control everything else—to the point it's vastly annoying. I'm allergic to responsibility, you know. This isn't good for my health."

"You control the world of the dead," he corrected. "Even these lands are in your domain. The only place in which you have no assertion is the land of the living."

Harry sighed. "So there's nothing to be done, then?"

"I didn't say that." The deiform laughed. "If you want to control the world of the living—you would have to rule that as well."

Harry wrinkled his nose. More responsibility. Not only that; _infinitely_ more responsibility. He didn't even want to know how difficult it would be to rule the lands of the living, the land of the dead was hard enough, and the dead didn't care about much of anything. He couldn't imagine how much harder it would be to rule a population that had mutinous opinions on everything ranging from animal rights to alimony laws.

Harry found himself staring into the murky obscurity of death. "How would I go about that?"

"You would have more way of knowing than me. I haven't been alive for all of eternity." The skull pointed out. Harry didn't know how that could be possible: he decided not to ask.

Harry scowled. "Don't tell me there are more artifacts for me to collect."

He had no idea how he managed to magically stumble into ownership of all three Hallows—he must be the only person in history to have ever unwillingly and unintentionally gathered all three. Typical.

"Perhaps it doesn't work like that…" Mused the pavonine creature; the darkness around Harry seemed to convulse upon itself.

Harry sighed. "I guess that's that, then." Apparently even the great father of death didn't know the answer. And if this archaic sheep skull didn't know—Harry decided he had no hope in ever finding out.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," chided the sheep skull.

Harry scowled again. Was there no such thing as privacy in the land of the dead? It appeared Occlumency was utterly meaningless here.

The old man chuckled darkly, "Come now Harry, you must know by now. You can't hide from death."

Yes, Harry supposed that was true. He couldn't hide from death.

He couldn't hide from himself.

.

.

.

Harry blinked rapidly.

_You can't hide from death_, death himself had said.

You can't hide from yourself.

It came to him, quite suddenly.

Harry was in the unique position of being a living Death King. He ruled the land of the dead, even if he wasn't dead himself. He belonged to the realm of the living as much as he did the realm of the dead; who else would be the king of the living but him?


	12. Right Before My Eyes

_some days I surprise even myself_

* * *

><p>.<p>

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.

L looked up once, quickly, gaze momentarily distracted by the gloom of the world outside the window. There was not much to see; the city was the color of wetness, and ghosts seemed to take roost in the fog, roaming the streets as indistinct figures swelling in the humidity. After a brief, cursory look, he returned his attention to the computer in front of him. The files were encrypted. How obnoxious. L was not particularly fond of python either, to make matters worse. He might have to call Wedy to muddle through all this.

He looked up again, when something seemed to flicker in the distance. Nothing.

There was not a soul awake in this enormous, hollowed building. Even Light Yagami was fast asleep next to him. It occurred to L how easy it would be to simply lean over and snap his neck. Then it occurred to him that he would have to explain why Light Yagami was dead next morning when he was saner and less sleep deprived. The sleep deprived thing might be more his fault though; it was two in the morning, the perfectly logical time to be sleeping.

Then again, L didn't sleep all that often, and when he did it was rarely when he was supposed to.

Surely if he explained that the man beside him was actually Kira, his actions would be excused?

But the more he thought on it, the less sure he was about Light Yagami. Was he still, truly, Kira? By renouncing his ownership over his Death Note he had ceased to be Kira, and had reverted to the sharp, clever college student he had always portrayed. He was even fairly amicable; egotistical, surely, but no more than L himself. It was the arrogance of a genius who had realized his mental superiority—not the arrogance of a genius hell bent on becoming God.

And even if he somehow managed to find enough evidence to convict Light Yagami for these crimes… did it even matter any more? For all intent purposes, the boy in front of him was no longer Kira. His powers and his memories were gone, siphoned into a new tenant with equally as unlawful ambitions. It seemed that wherever that Death Note went, greed, hate, and murder went with it.

He found one of his hands leaving his keyboard to fiddle with a small scrap of paper in his pocket; a familiar gesture that was quickly become habit.

Was the Death Note inherently evil?

The books, the Death Gods, this strange world he'd wandered into, _Harry_—were they all evil? Sinful? Abominations that shouldn't exist? All proponents to wreak havoc and chaos upon the world, using human greed as a vehicle for destruction? Or was it human greed that was causing this, and humans were simply using them as the means to achieve their ambitions?

L didn't know. On the one hand—human greed was nothing new to him. On the other hand, greed didn't come from being human, it came from self awareness and sentient thought.

Maybe he was completely missing the point.

Harry had asked him to find a way to bring Kira to justice; an impossible task. Who was Kira? The boy next to him? Kira was, for all intent purposes, a god. He could control the balance between life and death at will, could even control the actions of others; he was infallible.

L frowned into the distance, thumb swiping over the smooth, creased paper almost absently.

That wasn't true. Kira was not god, and he was not infallible.

Kira wasn't—but he knew someone who _was_.

"Ryuuzaki?"

Light was awake.

"Hmm?" He answered, if only to prove he was listening.

Light groaned, rubbing his eyes. "Shit. Did I fall asleep?"

"For five hours, thirty-three minutes and twenty seconds, yes." Was L's immediate response.

Light groaned again. He tapped his keyboard until the computer pulled itself out of sleep mode, screen lighting with dozens of spreadsheets. He blinked blearily at it, uncomprehending. L removed his hand from his pocket, sparing his company a quick glance. "There's no point in keeping this up," he rationalized. "Sleep is important."

Light tossed him an incredulous look. "This—coming from _you_?"

"Even I have to admit defeat to bodily functions eventually." L agreed, solemn, removing himself from his perch on the chair.

"Where are we going?" Light called after him, jerking slightly with the chain.

"To sleep." L returned, succinctly, and in no mood to get into a fight about sleeping in the same room again. Light always complained that the chain was uncomfortable when they slept, and he always fell off his bed. L offered to push them together to solve the issue, but Light staunchly refused.

At any rate, it seemed the other genius was too tired to complain, crawling into his bed with little fanfare and slumping over his pillow. L was not nearly as eager for sleep, perching himself against the bed frame. He sat in the darkness for some time, simply staring out the window. He felt like he was being watched. The detective scoffed—of course he was being watched, every room in this entire building had a camera, and people watching the cameras at any given moment.

As always, when the Kira case refused to distract him any longer he found his thoughts drifting to the enigmatic figure that vanished in and out of his life—maybe even existence itself.

He hadn't seen Harry in a few days. That in and of itself was not cause for concern; he had no real way of contacting him, had no idea where he went or what he did, and hadn't asked when he would return. This did not stop him from wondering anyhow. He fiddled with the uneven, disfigured pieces of this puzzle at all hours of the day. Not only were they pieces that didn't seem to fit together, there also weren't enough of them to make a coherent picture.

The Death King.

He wondered idly if Harry was truly God. Considering his occupation, it wouldn't surprise him. The idea of a higher power never appealed to him, and neither did the supernatural, but at this point it was getting very difficult to deny the existence of them.

The small hairs at the base of his neck prickled with a sudden chill. His eyes snapped open, adjusting to the darkness of the room.

For a moment, he thought it was his imagination. It was so cliché he had just assumed he'd made it up. The storm outside whipped against the windows, distorting the city lights. Thunder rumbled in the distance. A hand of lightning struck against the skyscrapers, and in the blinding flash of light a cloaked figure with a scythe appeared at the foot of his bed. L was a fan of B-rated horror movies—he enjoyed the overused plots and droll acting—and had simply dismissed this as a manifestation of sleep deprivation.

But then it spoke.

"You're L Lawliet, correct?"

His eyes widened at the voice—far too realistic to have come from his imagination. Higher pitched than he would have imagined it—and far more exasperated.

L swallowed, blinking into the abyss. He almost replied, before his thoughts from earlier came full circle; he was being watched. How strange would it look, to be seen sitting here in the dark talking to the air? But he couldn't leave, either. He had successfully caged himself to Light Yagami.

So instead he swallowed his response, scrutinizing the figure in front of him. He was cloaked in darkness, making him almost impossible to discern from the blanket of night around them. But his scythe glinted in the wan light from the windows, a strip of white that danced across the tip of his blade.

"No answer?" The grim reaper continued, wryly. "You're not scared, are you?"

Well he doesn't have much choice. He can't exactly respond.

L paused.

Or can he?

The detective dove for his laptop, hiding under the bed, and promptly wrenched it open. It took a few moments to access the security feeds; he chanced a glance towards the figure in the interim, relieved to find him still unmoving at the foot of his bed. It took even more to set up a proxy to reroute his IP address and then work his way into the system, but still the grim reaper did not leave. Finally he got to the cameras working in the room, and cut off the audio. It wouldn't look suspicious; he knew where the cameras were situated so they wouldn't see him talking, and the silence could be brushed aside easily. Light was asleep, L was an eccentric genius who liked to sit in the dark and think. Nothing to see here.

"Who are you?" He asked immediately, once the audio is off. "I'm assuming you must be one of the Shinigami."

"You assume correct." The grim reaper agreed. "I am called Deridovely, and I am a Shinigami."

Right, but why was he here? His mind flew through answers, most of them unhelpful, all of them centered around a singular person. Harry. It couldn't be coincidence that the boy reveals himself to be the King of Death and then all his Death Gods start showing up.

"Harry sent you," he concluded aloud. Deridovely nodded. Well with that out of the way, he still hasn't figured out why.

It occurred to him that he could either attempt to figure it out, or simply ask. And he had always been one for pragmatic efficiency, no matter how much he enjoyed puzzles. "Do you know why?"

The grim reaper shrugged. "He wasn't very specific." He prefaced with. "He just asked me to keep an eye on you."

"To watch out for me?" L reiterated. Why would he—well there was only one answer for that. Because L was in danger. Apparently enough danger to warrant a personal Death God as a bodyguard. "What am I in danger of?"

Or maybe that wasn't it at all.

"You humans—you're always in danger of something." Deridovely snorted. "But if you are in any specific kind of danger—I don't know of it. Other than the fact you've managed to mix yourself up in these affairs."

The Death God seemed to be appraising him. "Who are you, anyway?"

L blinked. "You summarized me well enough already; I am L. And if you're anything like you're counterparts, you're well informed as to why I am here and what I am doing."

"Yes." Deridovely agreed. "The detective chasing Kira, I know very well who you are. But that's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean, exactly?"

"I mean to ask; who are you—to _the King_?" He pressed, darkly.

L had no response to this. He mulled this over, taken aback by the implications. "I don't know." He answered at length, louder than he had intended. His gaze snapped to the form on the other bed.

Deridovely followed his gaze. "You don't have to worry about him seeing us talking," He said, much to L's relief. "I'll tell you if he wakes."

L sighed. "Yes, well, at any rate, I was hoping you would have the answer to that question."

"I'm afraid I do not know," the grim reaper confessed. "But he was concerned enough to ask me to watch over you, for whatever that's worth."

So either L was in grave danger, or Harry just had more personal interest in his well-being.

"What can you tell me about him?" He found himself asking. He didn't know when an opportunity like this would come around again. No one knew about Harry—aside from him. He had no one to ask, and nowhere to find any information. It certainly wasn't as if he could scour the internet or something. For all intent purposes, Harry didn't seem to exist.

"He is the King," he quipped immediately.

"Yes, I deduced as much for myself." Was L's acerbic response.

"Other than that, I don't have much to tell you." Deridovely shrugged. "You could probably tell me more about him than I could tell you."

"I don't know anything about him," L snapped, but it was without heat. More than anything he was just exhausted.

"He is… a strange one." The grim reaper said, at length.

L looked up at that.

"He hasn't been King for very long." He added. "And I don't believe he's all that fond of his position."

The thought was deeply fascinating. First of all, if he hadn't been king for long that meant that there was some sort of hierarchy to the title, that it was passed on somehow. This also inferred that Harry wasn't always the King, that he had been someone else, once upon a time. A Death God? A very powerful one, perhaps, chosen by the King to become his successor? Or perhaps he was a prince? And the idea that Harry perhaps didn't want to be King; what could that mean? Why? The reluctant King of all things, of death itself, wrapped up into the unremarkable form of a human boy—he had to admit, the thought of it only furthered his curiosity. Harry was such a magnetic creature, built on logical fallacies, dust and air, sorrow and regret. He could kill Light Yagami in mere moments, and yet he refrained. He had no obligation to assist L, even if he insisted his motivations were entirely self-serving. If he was truly so selfish, he wouldn't have bothered in the first place.

"He doesn't want to be King?" L echoed, thoughtful.

Perhaps he could see some of that for himself. Harry never seemed particularly enthused about anything—to that end, neither had 'Tom'. It seemed that peeling back one layer had only revealed an even more complex persona beneath. He was not Tom, the unassuming, amicable law student, he was the King of Death, apparently. But maybe that was equally as facsimile. Maybe he was as much the Death King as he was Tom; which was to say, not at all.

He was hoping for a legitimate answer; in hindsight, that was particularly ambitious of him. "I don't know." Came the impassive response from the being under the cloak.

L tapped a thumb against his mouth. Even though he had been thwarted, he felt oddly invigorated. A good puzzle was almost as good as a good slice of cake. In some occasions, it was even better than the confectionary; this was one of them.

"I suppose I should have expected that," L enthused, far too jovial. "Am I allowed to ask what you're going to do?"

The Shinigami tilted his head. "What I'm going to do?"

"You're watching over me, correct?" He hummed, talking more to himself than the creature before him. "Observing, most likely. Assessing the situation. But at what point will you make the decision to intervene? And do I have any say in that?"

"Do you want to have a say in what I do?" Deridovely asked, sounding bored.

"Yes, of course," Was L's immediate response. "But perhaps it's better if I didn't. Are you allowed to say?"

"As I said—he didn't say much." L didn't know whether Deridovely was intentionally being vague, or if it really was just a brief conversation. With Harry, it was difficult to say. "His words were to 'look after' you. I assume he was referring to your general health and wellbeing. If that is the case, than I will only intervene if either of those are in danger."

"And if I ask you to intervene?"

The grim reaper shrugged again. "He didn't say."

Another completely useless answer. L was starting to notice a pattern with these creatures—they never seemed to make much sense, and never had a straightforward answer to give. Were they truly so chaotic, or truly so indifferent? He was so very fascinated with all of them—with all of it. He couldn't begin to imagine what this all meant. The world of the death gods. And the Death King, ruling supreme above them all. A boy who could bend physics and logic at will, like magic. A part of him wished the world would start making sense again. The rest of him reveled in the idea of a world he knew nothing of.

He picked up his laptop, opening it again but bypassing the security feeds to reach the internet, intent on spending the rest of the night researching on the Yotsuba Group. He'd been feeling rather unmotivated with the Kira case, mainly because a new, far more enticing mystery had sidetracked him. But he suddenly found himself with a sense of purpose again.

"That's it?" Deridovely said, when it became clear L was not going to continue with the subject.

L made a noncommittal noise of agreement, typing away. "Yes, that's it." He answered after a while, not looking up.

"You don't have any other questions?"

"Would you answer them even if I did?" L challenged, sarcastic.

The grim reaper paused. "Fair point." He conceded.

"I'm turning the security audio back on," the detective told him, and promptly ignored him and his entire existence.

.

.

.

The grim reaper hovered over his shoulder for the rest of the week; a silent wraith at the foot of his bed; a coldness behind him that made the small hairs of his neck prickle; a figure standing just out of sight. He found himself running his thumb along a patch of lined paper, as if to remind himself that it was real. As if the personification of death himself lounging about his living room wasn't enough already.

Not only just death, but all of death's friends, too.

In the interim of his last meeting with Harry, he has managed to acquire a small crowd of Death Gods, popping in and out of existence at arbitrary intervals. They come to see Deridovely, for the most part, and the word 'friends' may perhaps be too misleading. The Shinigami seemed more exasperated with them than affectionate, and he never seemed to care if they were there or not. Ryuk was an especially common visitor. He always tried to get the drop on L—L prided himself on his lack of response. Ryuk seemed to be the only one of Harry's servants who didn't have a lick of servitude; or common decency, for that matter. Though he was far more talkative than his constituents, he was not a particularly useful source of information. He never bothered to explain what he talked about, and unfortunately L didn't know enough to guess.

They all had a lot of gossip to say about each other; but none of them knew anything about Harry.

He caught phrases every now and then, references to people and places. They spoke frequently of the 'King' (whom he assumed to be Harry), the 'Old man', and 'the lousy old geezer'. They spoke of the King and the old man with great respect; they usually had a derisive remark or two to on the lousy old geezer.

He was really starting to curse himself for being so particular on the security; on the one hand, it served his purpose well with Light and Misa. On the other hand, it effectively stopped him from holding conversations with any of the Death Gods. Deridovely appeared to be particularly popular amongst the Shinigam, even though he rarely spoke, and actually seemed rather annoyed with them all. Nonetheless they popped in at arbitrary intervals, to casually converse over the most arbitrary of events; they all had an absurdly obsessive fascination with the American film industry, and unfortunately most of their conversations weren't particularly enlightening to him. And the ones that were made no sense to him, and were often just casual remarks tossed about in between other topics.

It was difficult to give any kind of consideration to the task force, what with the growing magnitude of issues he had on his own. With the police turning their backs on the investigation, the members were in a difficult situation—one L had planned accordingly for, but neglected to mention. He was curious to see just how dedicated the task force was to the cause; would they believe him if he told them how Kira really kills? Would they work with him to find a way to bring Kira to justice? More importantly, were they ready to face the reality that Light _was_ Kira? To be candid, L did not have much faith in any of those. But then, he was accustomed to working alone, and preferred it that way.

The detective sat perched in his usual position in front of the vast wall of monitors, pausing in his typing. But was he truly working alone?

His gaze slid to the side, where Gukku, another of Harry's servants, was attempting to finagle Deridovely into betting Excalibur in their latest wages; this one over whether a particular British pop band would win any awards at this year's award ceremony. L found himself silently marveling at their severely bastardized priorities and total ignorance—or total indifference—on human concerns.

They were not a particularly helpful source, but they were at his disposal nonetheless.

But what to do with them?

.

.

.

Harry looked up into the vast and wicked sky, and wondered what to do from here. He'd never felt so sure of himself; he'd never felt so disconnected.

"You'll just have to get used to it," Said Lord Voldemort, from somewhere behind him. But when Harry turned around, there was nothing to see but silent mist crashing in geometric planes of light.

Why couldn't Lord Voldemort be the Death King? Harry thought, irritably. Or the Living King—or both, preferably. He'd been on this throne for less than a year and he was already begging for retirement.

"I _am _the Death King." The dark lord chuckled. "And I am the Living King. Don't you see, Harry? We are one and the same. You cannot escape me."

"Who said I was trying to escape you?" Harry wondered allowed, dryly. As he just thought earlier; he can't run from himself. He could try, but that would be incredibly unproductive.

"I don't want to run from you." He admits, after a long silence.

Lord Voldemort does not respond.

.

.

Harry emerged out of the bowels of hell with no small amount of consternation. He must have wandered down Privet Drive for what felt like eternity, trying to figure out how to get back to that damn train. He was starting to grow concerned that there wasn't a train at all, that the locomotive was a one-way trip. Well, apparently he was the Death King, so shouldn't he be able to control things like that? The father of death was quite possibly the most unhelpful person Harry had ever had the distinct displeasure of meeting—and he'd thought that honor would forever go to Grindelwald. He never actually found the train; rather, it found him.

The Death King retraced his steps back to the train station.

The sight was desolate and hollow, and instilled within him a grave sorrow. Empty, grand, and devoid of life, Harry entered the palatial world with a small amount of wonder. There appeared to be no determinable color to this place, or perhaps Harry had just forgotten what color was. Lord Voldemort was gone. The boy looked around; the station appeared like an endless canvas, but there were no doors or windows. A large, domed ceiling washed the station in a marmoreal haze, a brightness Harry wouldn't quite call light, but certainly wasn't darkness. He could not figure out where the dark lord could have gone, and ultimately decided it wasn't any of his business anyway.

When he finally picked his way out of the fragmented world, the world of the living returned with a searing, blinding light. Harry had to close his eyes against its brilliance, lest he burn his eyes.

It was strange. He felt lost, but not alone.

Is this what it meant to be the Living King? It was as if every presence on this earth was tangible, something he could brush his fingertips against. Nameless, unguessed by the eye, but upon further inspection it crumbled with his touch like fractal alcoves, diamond cathedrals that seemed to shiver with his being. Had it always been like that? And he had simply never stopped to turn around and see it?

But perhaps he was just projecting; maybe he had been the Living King all along. He just hadn't been aware of it.

The brunette decided that sitting here attempting to work the puzzle out would do him no good.

Harry did not know the answer. A lesser man might hunt through the four corners of the earth, scouring for the solution. But Harry didn't feel like wasting an eternity or two searching through the many planes of light and sound. Perhaps, before, he would have done so, when he was a young boy. He was not young and naïve anymore, and instead did what any sensible adult would do when presented with a problem they couldn't solve.

He asked for help.

Harry closed his eyes, thinking of a place he had lost a long time ago. A very familiar castle drifted over his vision when he finally opened his eyes; spindly towers in sharp relief of the prowling mountains. The grounds were covered in a fine dew, and Harry left a winding trail through the dampness as he crossed the hills until he reached the front doors.

The courtyard was cold and silent, and the doors were wide open.

Harry peered around; where were the students? Then he realized he hadn't bothered to check the time. The wizard casted a quick tempus; it was approaching four in the morning. Suddenly the lack of people made a startling amount of sense.

He wandered through the stone halls as if wandering through a dream he no longer remembered. It was easy to gaze about and recognize things; the courtyard where Seamus hit him in the face with a water balloon; a suit of armor that Hermione had accidentally knocked over; a tapestry of hideous ostriches doing… something. These were all so familiar, but he could associate with them no longer. The Hermione in his memories was a person he couldn't reach anymore. But then he thought of the café on the corner, the table by the window, Hermione framed by the dreary streets of London, a small smile crossing her features. Maybe she was right. Maybe they had all changed, somehow turned into unfamiliar things, incapable of turning around and remembering who they used to be. But then, maybe that was just how it was supposed to be.

He finally found his way to the Headmistresses office, finding the doors firmly shut.

"Blumberry pie," he said aloud, recalling the password he'd used the last time he'd been here.

The gargoyle only stared down at him, thoroughly unimpressed.

"Oh bloody hell," Harry cursed, having half a mind to kick the gargoyle in front of him in a misplaced fit of anger. Unfortunately, that would probably be more of a detriment to him than the gargoyle. To make matters worse, the gargoyle smiled nastily at him, flapping its stone wings as it sniffed and looks away.

"How many times is Mcgonagall going to change this password in a year?" He grumbled to himself, looking around the empty, familiar corridors.

He had made it a point to avoid Hogwarts as much as possible. The school brought up far too many fond memories for him to be comfortable with; each and every one of them stained with the aftermath of the war. He hated thinking on the past. It always had a way of ruining the present. _But what did it matter_, he thought, miserably.

The present was ruined anyhow.

The door swung open, surprising him. He was not one to look a gift horse in the face, however, and he gratefully stepped onto the moving staircase. He was surprised to arrive to the sight of an empty office. Mcgonagall was nowhere in sight. That was alright though, it wasn't the Headmistresses he was here to see.

"Professor Dumbledore," Harry greeted, as he approached a snoozing portrait. "I'm sorry to interrupt your sleep, but I have a question for you."

The portrait awoke slowly, and the man blinked his watery blue eyes at Harry from over his half-moon spectacles.

"Why, Harry my boy!" He greeted with surprise. "How wonderful to see you, how have you been?"

"I wish I could say well—that my life was good and uneventful." Harry replied, flatly. "Unfortunately I cannot."

"Ah." Dumbledore commiserated. "A pity."

"How is your portrait?"

"Good and uneventful." The headmaster smiled, eyes twinkling. "Now, you said you had a question for me?"

"The Living King," Harry stated aloud. "Have you ever heard that term?"

Dumbledore frowned thoughtfully. "No," he said at length. "I can't say I have."

"When you were younger and you—met Grindelwald. You wanted the Deathly Hallows. Why?"

"A fool's folly, no doubt." Dumbledore sighed, not looking surprised in the least that Harry knew about that. "We had ideals that could never be realized. And thank Merlin for that. I was a thoroughly naïve and disillusioned young man."

Sounded familiar.

"Gellert knew of the Hallows before I met him, and he taught me the legend. We became… obsessed. For different reasons, but in the end we both desired that power."

"The tale of the three brothers," Harry supplied. "That legend."

Dumbledore nodded. "Yes. Three brothers crossing a river that should have killed them." He paused for a long time. "Tell me, Harry, why did they survive?"

Harry frowned. What a complex question. What was the reason for their survival? What did it mean? Why could they defeat death, why were they the only three to _ever_ defeat death? "I'm afraid I don't know." Harry admitted, at length. "Why did Death let them go?"

"Isn't that the question?" Dumbledore mused. "_Why_?"

"I tried my whole life to answer that question, Harry." Dumbledore confessed. "And I never managed to find it."

Harry blinked. "Maybe that was because you never asked."

"I'm sorry?" Dumbledore blinked.

Harry shrugged. "Someone, somewhere, has to know something that can help you right?"

"I suppose," the great wizard agreed. "Though I never encountered such a person."

Harry looked away, into the light, just beginning to crawl along the edges of the window.

"I met death the other day," he said, after a moment. "He was a longhorn sheep skull."

Dumbledore's brows rose.

"He didn't seem to know anything, either. In fact, he didn't even care. I don't think he cares about much of anything."

Harry looked back, gaze solemn and grave. "I am the Death King now, did you know? The Master of the Hallows, if I am even truly a King, or truly a Master. I seem to be just as ineffectual and powerless as everyone else." He just also happened to have more paperwork than everyone else.

"Am I death?" He continued, urgently.

Had he always been death? But that can't be right, he had lived a long fulfilling life. Harry paused. _Was_ living. He was still alive, wasn't he?

"Maybe," Dumbledore allowed, thoughtful. "In my later years, I had begun to question the validity of the story—or rather, its true intended purpose. It occurred to me that perhaps I had been going about it all wrong."

Harry blinked. "How do you mean?"

"Life is what you make of it, you know. Death too, I suppose—they are two halves of the same coin, after all." He paused. "I always found it difficult to believe that everyone had a specific purpose, a destiny in place for them."

"There's a prophecy that states otherwise," Harry pointed out, because what was his life, if not a convoluted stroke of fate?

"Prophecy's can be ignored just as conclusively as everything else. " Dumbledore revealed. "If one chooses to do so."

"No one chose to do so." Harry noted, aloud.

"No." Dumbledore agreed, sadly. "We did not."

"_But where would you be otherwise?"_ Tom Riddle whispered in his ear. Harry ignored him.

"My head hurts." Harry decided, at length. There appeared to be no right or wrong to this equation—for all intent purposes, there didn't seem to be an answer at all. "None of this is making any sense."

"I don't think it's supposed to." Said the old wizard. "You speak of the Death King—and the Living King. But maybe these terms are just as symbolic as the story; I have come to believe that the tale of the three brothers is not an account of defying death, but rather a metaphor."

"A metaphor for what?" Asked Harry, quizzically.

"Why did the three brothers survive, Harry?" Dumbledore asked once more.

Harry paused, frowning pensively. Why did they survive? Did death smile upon them? Or was it all some convoluted plan for them to die anyway? They were supposed to, after all, and Harry remembered Hermione reading it aloud; she had said that death did not like to be cheated, and the brothers were supposed to have died. But they didn't, because they used magic.

"Because they used magic?" He hazarded, tossing it out there for he had no other ideas to give.

"I've wondered that as well." Mused Dumbledore. "Was it magic that saved them? And if so, would that then infer that using magic is cheating death? One could further say that, if death was a natural process of life, than magic was unnatural. And if magic is not a trait designed by nature, where does it come from? And why do we have it?"

Harry frowned deeper, unable to answer his former Headmaster's questions. Perhaps he should have expected that being the Death King would not be as simple as pushing paperwork around. That there was some far more complex machination that lay behind it, and he was the unwilling prey caught in the elaborate web. He controlled death, he was the Death King, but this did not deter from the fact that even he was some cog in some vast, intricate woven design he was unaware of. He longed for the simplicity and ignorance of his human self; Grindelwald was right, he was the Death King now and that role came with complexity and responsibility. And it was his role, however unwilling it was.

"But perhaps it is more than that." Dumbledore continued. "I've come to believe that this is not a story about death and revenge—rather, about choice. Magic is powerful yes, and perhaps unnatural, but choice is truly the most powerful of all human strength."

"Maybe your right," Harry said at length. "Maybe these artifacts and these titles are figurative—maybe I'm thinking the wrong way. Maybe I really am the Living King for no other reason than that I am alive."

The Death King held the power of death—he decided (or at least, he had the option to decide) how and when death would seize those from the world of the living. The Living King held the power of choice.

He was not sure which was more dangerous.

* * *

><p><em>it honestly still boggles me why people like this story.. to each their own I suppose. I'll be honest, writing it is always such a challenge, it just doesn't come to me the way my other stories do. <em>

_Okay but actually I do have something legit to ask in this AN: This story has been platonic up until now, mainly because I keep forgetting about the slash. But all this just means that there is still hope for both! (no pairing, or L/Harry) The next chapter sort of needs the answer, so don't keep me hanging for too long?_


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